Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who broke with the party after her warnings about then-President Joe Biden’s decline went unheeded during the 2024 campaign, says a leadership vacuum in the Democratic Party has helped the Democratic Socialists of America notch a string of victories in 2026.
“They’re a metastasizing cancer,” Li told Fox News Digital. “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.”
Li traces the DSA’s growing influence back years, to pressure campaigns she says pushed Democratic candidates further left. She says she experienced this firsthand in 2018, when she ran for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 5th District.
A Questionnaire and a Wikipedia Page
Li said the DSA required candidates in the race to fill out a questionnaire tying them to the group’s platform.
“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 said.
She said she felt she had no real choice but to complete it at the time, and didn’t expect the answers to follow her.
“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. So now on my Wikipedia page it has me as some tree-hugging, marijuana-supporting whatever. I said none of that. They just grabbed it from the questionnaire,” Li said, adding that other candidates in the field filled out the same form.
Blaming the Establishment
Asked whether she was surprised by the DSA’s recent wins against establishment incumbents, Li pointed instead to what she described as a lack of momentum among veteran party leaders.
“Think about it, at this point in time, in the election cycle, in 2006, we knew who the candidate was likely going to be, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton,” Li said. “Barack Obama had already given his ‘There’s no blue state, there’s no red state, there’s only United States of America’ speech. We knew he was gonna be a presidential candidate. Who’s the candidate this time? We don’t know.”
Li also criticized Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin directly, arguing the DSA looks stronger only because of weak competition at the top of the party.
“We need a Democratic leader who is unforgettable, dynamic, vigorous, who can launch a compelling argument to the American people. Instead, we have this milquetoast man, who nobody remembers,” Li said. “Keep in mind that the Democratic Party right now is so broke they put up their own headquarters up as collateral because they took out a loan. They’re broke. They have no money. Ken Martin is a joke.”
Fox News Digital reported in July that the DNC used its headquarters building to secure a $15 million loan, according to public records, with the property’s inclusion allowing the group to draw an additional $5 million. Campaign finance records show the DNC had accumulated nearly $18.5 million in debt as of June 30.
Li, who is set to publish a book titled “Unburdened” later this year, said she raised concerns about the DSA long before leaving the Democratic Party.
“I did a Fox News documentary in 2020 warning against the DSA; I kid you not. I kid you not, these people have been poisonous for a very long time,” she said.
Li now identifies as a conservative.
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