Democrats are learning a hard lesson Republicans know all too well: The party out of power doesn’t just ride the anti-incumbency wave — it can also get swept up in it.

Why it matters: The populist energy surging through the left after President Trump’s return to the White House is roiling Democratic primaries and fueling establishment fears about the party’s general election chances.

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• Just ask Senate Republicans how that went for them in 2010, 2012 and 2022.

“We saw it in Missouri, we saw it in Indiana more than a decade ago,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), the chair of the center-left New Democrat Coalition.

• GOP candidates who were “off-putting” and held “positions that don’t reflect the majority of the state” helped Democrats win two seats “that I don’t think we would have otherwise,” he said.

Driving the news: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) struck out for a third time this past week in its attempt to elevate a candidate in a Democratic House primary.

• Former state Rep. Amish Shah — whose grassroots, door-to-door campaigning tactics the DCCC does not believe are effective — prevailed over the party favorite, ex-TV journalist Marlene Galán-Woods.
• The DCCC ran a $500,000 joint ad buy with Galán-Woods and outside Democratic groups spent millions more to support her, but to no avail.
• Shah’s win came after progressives Randy Villegas of California and Matt Dunlap of Maine defeated DCCC-backed rivals in primaries last month.

All three seats are key battlegrounds in Democrats’ fight to retake the House in November.

• While Villegas and Shah are running to flip GOP-held seats, Dunlap is simply trying to hold retiring Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) district.
• The DCCC added Dunlap rival Joe Baldacci to its “Red to Blue” program but it has not yet extended the same courtesy to Dunlap, which some observers see as a sign of their uncertainty about his chances.

Zoom in: Add that to Democrats’ big mess in Maine, where populist left-wing darling Graham Platner dropped out earlier this month amid allegations of sexual assault, which he denied.

• Platner, a self-described oyster farmer, had won the Democratic nomination after muscling out Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the preferred choice of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
• Instead state party activists have turned to Troy Jackson, a progressive logger and state Senate majority leader who is already facing scrutiny over alleged angry outbursts during his time in the legislature.

What they’re saying: “The reality is that socialism doesn’t sell with most folks, and neither does their anti-American, anti-cop extremist rhetoric,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told Axios.

• “If we let socialists and their extremist message hijack the Democratic Party, then we risk losing the races we should win in November.”
• Said Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio): “Most Americans … want to know their leaders are going to work together and keep them safe. They don’t like extremism, whether it comes from the left or the right.”

The other side: Progressive Democrats say their candidates have tapped into voter angst and are well-positioned for November.

• “Anti establishment and anti status quo candidates give us the best shot in the midterms at a time when Americans view our politics as corrupt and our system as unfair,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
• “Running chatGPT bland centrists is not the answer.”

Between the lines: While generic congressional ballot polling suggests Democrats are on track for a healthy victory in November, the state-of-play gets far less rosy for them upon closer inspection.

• This cycle’s mid-decade redistricting war took a decisive turn in the GOP’s favor after the Supreme Court narrowed the Voting Rights Act, enabling several Southern states to eliminate Democratic House seats.
• The redraws have made it so that House Democrats will need to scrap for every single seat they can get their hands on in order to cobble together a majority even if they win the national popular vote decisively.
• Senate Democrats were already staring down a difficult map that would require them to pick up seats in several states President Trump won in 2024 to take the majority.

What we’re watching: One of Democrats’ biggest headache this cycle is Michigan, which has primaries on Aug. 4.

• Centrist Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and progressive Abdul El-Sayed are pummeling each other to be the Democratic candidate in what is sure to be a highly competitive U.S. Senate race.
• Establishment Democrats are petrified about an El-Sayed win, but Stevens has faced plenty of headwinds that have put her viability into doubt — most recently the ouster of a consultant who was moonlighting for Palantir.
• Further down the ballot, party leaders are fearful that a pair of moderates running to challenge Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) will split the vote and clear the way for progressive Will Lawrence to get the nomination.

The bottom line: Progressive candidates have shown they can win generals in reliably blue areas. November brings the bigger test, and the one causing establishment panic: whether they can succeed in the swing districts that’ll decide who controls Congress.