Former Bernie Sanders operative warns radical left has 'overtaken' the Democratic Party from within

A former Bernie Sanders operative is sounding the alarm over what the Democratic Party has become, warning that the far left has "overtaken" the party from within.

"Part of the reason it's been overtaken is because the establishment tried really hard in 2020 to block us, and in 2019, after AOC won, they did a blacklist and that actually backfired on them, and it made the far left grow stronger," Evan Barker told "Jesse Watters Primetime."

Barker, who raised money for Democratic candidates throughout her career before deciding to vote for Trump in 2024, argued that the Democratic establishment's efforts to contain its insurgent flank ultimately backfired, pushing activists to build their own political infrastructure — from training one another to recruiting donors, including billionaires.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left; Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, center; Sen. Bernie Sanders, right. (Andrew Roth/Reuters)

The result, Barker argued, is a party increasingly influenced from the inside by its activist base, donors and staffers, some of whom she says are considerably further left than the politicians they work for.

"I think they've kind of been captured from all sides. They have these hyper-left-leaning donors coupled with the staff that's been radicalized and the base," she said.

Barker said she has watched that shift play out even within the movement she once joined, pointing to Sanders' positions on issues including guns and immigration.

"I've seen him kind of be dragged further and further to the left by what he views as his message bearers, people like AOC and Ilhan Omar and now Abdul El-Sayed," she added.

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Items on a table during an election night party held by the Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles chapter at The Greyhound on Nov. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Barker's warning comes as a new crop of progressive candidates and democratic socialists test its strength ahead of the midterm elections, including figures she says are carrying forward the movement that Sanders helped build.

Progressive Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, whom Barker specifically named as one of Sanders' emerging "message bearers," recently secured the Democratic nomination in a close primary against Rep. Haley Stevens.

Others have won key primaries elsewhere, including Mamdani-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez in New York.

Barker previously revealed to Fox News Digital that the Democratic Party's leftward shift prompted her decision to leave the party, sharing that she was inspired to enter politics during former President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.

"If you look at him then, and you compare him to the modern movement of the party today, it is just night and day. They have gone left on so many critical issues, like immigration and identity politics, and defund the police and just all of these things that I did not sign up for," she said.

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She added that former President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and then-Vice President Kamala Harris' subsequent nomination made her recognize in "real time the manifestation of everything the Democrats had become."

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Fox News' Robert McGreevy contributed to this report.