New Hampshire Democrats went to the polls Tuesday with a useful reminder that primaries are where political families hold arguments they would never schedule before company arrives. Rep. Chris Pappas, the establishment-backed candidate for an open Senate seat, is facing Karishma Manzur, a scientist and activist aligned with the democratic socialist left. Manzur has called Pappas a “genocide enabler” over his support for Israel. Nothing says broad coalition like opening the family meeting by accusing the frontrunner of enabling genocide.
Fox News describes Manzur as a once-longshot candidate who gained momentum as progressive victories elsewhere pulled national attention toward New Hampshire. Pappas, a four-term congressman, has the money, endorsements and institutional support. Manzur has the sharper ideological knife. That makes the race a tidy laboratory for the Democratic Party’s recurring question: do you beat the establishment by persuading more voters, or by making establishment Democrats confess their sins until everyone misses the bus to the general election?
There are real policy differences here, especially over Israel and Gaza, and Manzur is entitled to attack Pappas’s record. Primaries are supposed to test incumbents and expose disagreements. But “genocide enabler” is not a gentle invitation to reconsider a foreign-policy vote. It is the sort of accusation that leaves very little room for the possibility that the person standing next to you might still be useful in a coalition next Tuesday. The left keeps trying to build a bigger tent while checking everyone at the entrance for ideological liquids over three ounces.
The political logic is familiar. Activist movements reward clarity, urgency and moral conviction. Electoral coalitions reward people who can tolerate allies they find irritating. Those incentives collide every primary season. A candidate can win applause online by declaring the mainstream Democrat morally unacceptable, then discover that the Senate still requires votes from people whose bumper stickers were not approved by the group chat. Purity is wonderfully portable until you have to assemble 51 senators.
Manzur’s rise also arrives as democratic socialists are enjoying genuine momentum. That is exactly why the movement should be able to survive serious questions about tactics. If the project is moving from protest politics into governing power, its candidates will have to distinguish between condemning policies and making every disagreement a character indictment. A movement cannot simultaneously insist it is mature enough to run major institutions and treat coalition management as suspicious centrist behavior.
Pappas is hardly above scrutiny. Establishment Democrats have a long tradition of discovering grassroots enthusiasm only after a consultant sends them a memo about it. They can dismiss challengers too quickly, confuse donor networks with public support and act surprised when younger voters demand a sharper response to war, inequality or corporate power. A primary challenge can force those politicians to answer questions they would rather convert into a listening session. That is healthy. The trick is leaving enough of the nominee intact to run in November.
New Hampshire makes the stakes particularly concrete. The Senate seat is open because Jeanne Shaheen is retiring, and both parties view it as competitive. Republicans have former senator John Sununu seeking the nomination with Trump’s endorsement. This is not a safely blue city council district where the winner can spend January debating whether the campaign’s terminology was sufficiently decolonized. The Democratic nominee will have to win swing voters in a state famous for making politicians personally earn every handshake.
The far left often argues that moderation has failed because voters want candidates who actually believe something. Fair enough. Believing something is good. Explaining it to people who do not already agree is the next part. Calling a fellow Democrat a genocide enabler may communicate intensity, but intensity is not automatically a governing theory. Sometimes it is just a very efficient way to make sure the opposition’s campaign staff does not have to write the attack ad themselves. That distinction matters because moral language can clarify a choice or end a conversation. If every vote becomes proof of complicity in the worst possible outcome, there is no obvious path back for an ally who changes position, negotiates or partially agrees. Politics then becomes less about building majorities than documenting betrayals. That may produce a very accurate spreadsheet of disappointments. It is less obviously a method for passing legislation.
The broader Democratic Party has spent 2026 watching socialists win races, centrists survive others and every faction announce that the latest result proves the entire future of American politics. New Hampshire may add another data point, not a final answer. Parties are coalitions because voters are inconsistent, local conditions differ and no ideological faction gets to order the electorate from a menu. The people who find that frustrating tend to be the people most eager to lead the coalition. A durable movement needs converts, defectors and imperfect partners, not only people who arrived at the correct position before the deadline. If every disagreement becomes a disqualification, the coalition can become morally immaculate at exactly the moment it becomes mathematically incapable of governing. Winning still requires somebody outside the meeting.
Manzur’s challenge is therefore bigger than Pappas. If democratic socialists want to prove they can expand beyond activist strongholds, they need to show that moral urgency and electoral coalition-building can occupy the same sentence. Otherwise the movement risks winning the argument about who is pure enough to represent Democrats while Republicans quietly ask a simpler question: who is easiest to beat?
Sources
Fox News: Key swing state voters to settle dueling Senate primary fights in crucial open-seat race
The Guardian: New Hampshire voters head to polls in race crucial to Democrats’ Senate hopes
