Moderate Democratic groups, donors and even some Republicans are flooding Ohio’s 11th Congressional District with millions of dollars in a bid to elect Shontel Brown and defeat progressive favorite Nina Turner in Tuesday’s special primary election.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), along with Democratic Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.), are headlining a get-out-the-vote event for Brown this weekend as well. ....

The goal of Brown’s establishment allies, however, is not merely to stop Turner. By defeating Turner, a staunch ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and critic of Democratic Party leaders, these moderates also hope to send a shot across the bow to the nascent activist left ― a signal that they are ramping up efforts to limit the left’s influence in Congress.

“Establishment Dems have largely slept through a lot of primary challenges or a lot of these races where the Justice Democrats have played,” said a moderate Democratic strategist uninvolved in the race, who asked for anonymity for professional reasons. “They’re not going to do that anymore.” ....

But as her critics have grown more willing to remind voters, she is also someone who publicly entertained an offer to serve as Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein’s running mate in 2016, and who, in 2020, likened the choice between President Donald Trump and Biden to deciding between a “bowl of shit” and “half” of that bowl.....

“People who vote in the Democratic primary tend to be voters who are proud to be Democrats and prioritize Democratic unity,” said Cass, a partner at Slingshot Strategies in Manhattan. “If your words can be twisted and painted in a way that makes it look like you are antithetical to that ― which Nina Turner is not, but people she has pissed off perceive that to be the case ― I don’t think Democratic voters like that.”