CPAC host report says number of ‘radical left’ Democrats in Congress surging

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A new report by a top conservative group says that the number of “radical left” Democrats in Congress is surging and that the vast majority of freshman Democrats who ran on moderate platforms ended up embracing far-left ideas once in D.C.

The American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), published the analysis that rates members of Congress on their votes and the extent to which they align with the groups' positions.

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It found that all but 13 Democrats in Congress qualified for the group’s “Coalition of the Radical Left” by earning scores 10 percent or less, while there were more earning zero percent than at any point in the rating report’s 49-year-history.

“The days of the ‘moderate’ Democrat party are over,” ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said in a statement. “By earning more zero percent ACUF Ratings than ever before, congressional Democrats have demonstrated that they’ve abandoned any form of moderation and chosen the path forged by their radicalized party leadership.”

A great deal of media attention has focused on the “Squad” -- a group of radical freshman congresswomen. That group, consisting of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., has pushed a number of far-reaching ideas in Congress -- including the Green New Deal, "Medicare-for-all," reparations for slavery and welfare for illegal immigrants.

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But those ideas have not remained at the fringe of the party, instead moving quickly into its mainstream. A number of Democratic presidential contenders embraced a number of those positions, while other economic ideas such as a guaranteed minimum income have found support from Democratic Party leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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With all but 13 Democrats under the group's threshold, the ACUF report concluded that even those who ran on moderate platforms to give the Democratic Party control of the House of Representatives in 2018 ended up embracing radical positions once they got to the halls of Congress.

The report also found that 21 of 23 Democrats of New York’s congressional delegation qualified for the “Coalition of the Radical Left." That group included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who earned zero percent in the report, scoring even lower than Ocasio-Cortez’s 7 percent.