Left and right borrow each other’s tactics as outsiders test election playbooks across the Americas
Political outsiders are reshaping campaign strategy across the Americas, and both left and right are borrowing from the same hard-edged playbook. In the Unit...
Political outsiders are reshaping campaign strategy across the Americas, and both left and right are borrowing from the same hard-edged playbook. In the United States and Colombia, candidates are leaning on anti-establishment language, social media muscle and a promise to crack down on insecurity.
That cross-pollination matters because it shows how once-niche political styles are escaping their home camps. A left-wing Senate run in the U.S. and a presidential race in Colombia are now being watched for the same reason: each tests whether a disruptive campaign can still break through the old party order.
Trump-style tactics on the left
One example comes from Maine, where Graham Platner is running for the U.S. Senate and, according to The Washington Times, is borrowing from the Trump playbook in a maverick left-wing bid. The details are not fully spelled out in the source material, but the framing alone is striking: tactics once associated with Donald Trump are now being adapted by a candidate on the left.
That suggests the style of modern insurgent politics now travels faster than ideology. Loud branding. Direct appeals. A break with party orthodoxy. For candidates looking to upset entrenched rivals, those tools have become portable.
Colombia’s race echoes the pattern
Colombia offers a parallel. France 24 reported that the country’s left-wing presidential candidate conceded the vote to De la Espriella on June 24, while Newsweek described a contest shaped by a familiar formula: anti-establishment rhetoric, heavy social media use and a pledge to restore security while defeating the left.
Newsweek said Ivan Cepeda, backed by President Gustavo Petro, was the left’s standard-bearer, while Abelardo De La Espriella — a lawyer and political outsider nicknamed “The Tiger” — surged from the margins to become the leading right-wing challenger. His campaign, the report said, echoed a style associated with Trump.
That makes Colombia more than a local story. It fits a broader pattern across the hemisphere, where voters are being asked to choose between continuity and a candidate who promises to tear up the script.
A progressive counterplay
The left is also debating its own version of the formula. ABC News reported that the victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York’s mayoral elections has prompted talk of a new “progressive playbook” for America’s political left, with questions over whether that politics can scale beyond liberal cities.
Bhaskar Sunkara, a longtime associate of Mamdani, was cited as examining what comes next for the left. The basic question is blunt. Can a city-level model travel? Or does it stop at the borough line?
For now, the answer appears to be unsettled. But the campaign lesson is clear enough: in politics from New York to Bogotá, candidates are hunting for the same edge, and they are no longer choosing their tactics by ideology alone.
