Democrats pretending to be Independents is nothing new.

All the outgoing congressional ‘independents’ are Democrats including Manchin and Sinema, who are leaving, Sen. Angus King, a Democrat pretending to be an Independent to fool Maine voters, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose only basis for being an ‘independent’, despite repeatedly running for the Democrat presidential nomination, is that the party isn’t yet sufficiently Communist enough for his tastes.

While there are some Republicans who try this in party machine liberal states and cities, it rarely works out well for them since a leftist media characterizes them as ‘right-wingers’ no matter how liberal they actually are.

But it really says something that post-2024 a bunch of Democrats are contemplating pretending to be indies to get over their toxic party brand.

Losing to a twice-impeached convicted felon has left a small, but growing, number of Democrats wondering if their party brand is so toxic that they should shed the label — particularly in battleground and red states.

Mike Duggan, the longtime Democratic mayor of Detroit, is pursuing an independent campaign for governor in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in his state. Democratic strategists are studying this year’s bid by independent Dan Osborn, who as a Senate candidate in Nebraska overperformed the top of the ticket, as a model to win the upper chamber. And a Joe Biden mega-fundraiser is floating a gubernatorial run in Florida on what he calls the “Capitalist Party” ticket.

Is this a scam? Of course, it’s a scam.

Some Democrats eye Osborn’s 14-point overperformance in Nebraska as proof that independent candidates who embrace economic populism can win back voters who are turned off by the Democratic Party.

A mechanic and former union leader, Osborn railed against big corporations during his campaign while also speaking positively about Trump’s border wall. He said on the trail that he wouldn’t caucus with either party, but even so, his victory would have helped Democrats by unseating the Republican incumbent, Deb Fischer. In fact, the Senate Democrats’ top super PAC quietly boosted Osborn.

Osborn, who has not ruled out another run in 2026, hopes more people run for office as independents. “That’s really what the country needs,” he told POLITICO.

Democrats who claim to be independents and promise not to caucus with Dems… inevitably do.

They’re also backed by Democrats even when they pretend not to be.

“Anyone looking at the Senate map, not just in 2026 but over the next six years and beyond, sees that we need a path to chipping into the Republican majority,” said a Democratic strategist who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “And it doesn’t necessarily mean electing Democrats. But it means changing what the denominator is that we need to get to a majority.”

So rather than fixing the party, they’ll run trojan horse candidates. Will it work? Probably.

And not just in America.

Israeli politics has been defined by a completely toxic brand for the Labor Party and a variety of fake third parties fronted by retired generals who always turn out to be the Labor Party. At some point you would think the public would learn that former General Branja’s Branja party is really just a redressed version of the same third party that’s been popping in and out for the last 30 years, but he announces he’s running to create a new ‘centrist’ voice and a Maariv poll estimates that he will win 30 mandates and there we go.

Still it really says something that the Democrat brand so bad that they need to disguise who they are. The Dems may take the House in 2026, but I don’t think they’ve got a shot at the Senate unless Republicans implode spectacularly, and it’ll be trickier to do in a presidential race.

Nobody’s buying Gov. Newsom running as an independent.