How progressives are taking over swing states – and driving fear into Democratic elites

Left-leaning challengers in the Rust belt are throwing chaos into a divided party struggling to rebuild after Trump's win

In the run-up to last month's mayoral election in Dayton, Ohio, candidate Shenise Turner-Sloss found herself up against it.

Her opponent, mayor Jeffrey Mims, was a 78-year-old local Democratic party doyen who had served on school boards and teachers' unions in the city for decades. His campaign budget was three times hers and an incumbent hadn't been unseated from the mayoral role in the city for over a decade.