Ex-Dem fundraiser traces socialist surge to Biden-era leadership vacuum: ‘There’s no one there’

Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who left the party after her warnings about then-President Joe Biden ’s decline went unheeded during the 2024 campaign, says Democrats’ leadership vacuum has helped fuel the Democratic Socialists of America’s string of victories in 2026.

"They’re a metastasizing cancer," Li told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"I had a bird’s-eye view from the beginning, you know, [to] the ascent of the DSA — power abhors a vacuum.

They’re simply filling a vacuum.

There’s no one there." According to Li, the DSA has pressured candidates for years to push their platforms further and further left — a process she said she experienced firsthand when, in 2018, she tried to run for Congress herself.

Li, who is publishing a new book titled "Unburdened" later this year, believes it’s one of the many layers of how the DSA and socialists have emerged as a force to be reckoned with within the Democratic Party in 2026.

MAMDANI-BACKED SOCIALISTS LOOK TO TAKE NEW YORK PLAYBOOK NATIONWIDE AFTER PRIMARY VICTORIES In her own experience, the DSA’s pressure came in the form of a questionnaire.

"These over-educated bums, which populated the DSA — that's what they are — basically forced me to adopt its platform by handing me a questionnaire and saying, ‘everyone in this congressional race must fill out this questionnaire,’" Li recalled.

At the time, in 2018, Li said she felt like she didn’t have a choice but to fill out the form and didn’t expect the answers to stick with her.

She was running for Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District.

"That's what they do.

I don't know if Americans are familiar with that, but that's how they enforce compliance.

They hand you these candidate questionnaires, you fill it out, and so your name is forever attached.

It even made it to my Wikipedia page.