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No, Thomas never ran as a Democrat, as he was the standard bearer for the Socialist Party. I believe he tried to claim he was anti-Communist (or at least not enamored of the Soviet mess), while still being Socialist (though the SPA, which he was a member of, was supposedly pro-Soviet early on). I’ve found trying to differentiate the who is who of the far left a frustrating thing, and for most people, it’s too nuanced and parochial to master (ironic when you consider the left tries to say they reject labeling, yet they’re very quick to label opponents both within leftist and of the right).

I’ve spoken to (online at least) one New York Socialist Party standard-bearer, and they have all these different levels and groupings (Stalinist, anti-Stalinist, Trotskyite, anti-Trotskyite, Socialist anti-Communist, et al). To me, it’s generally meaningless because it’s all under the aegis of leftism and generally antithetical to the American model of freedom (and varies between absolute totalitarianism to a Scandinavian model - none of which would ever work here on American soil, and even the “freer” model of Scandinavian Socialism is crumbling as well, especially as they’ve had to bring in Mohammadans to do the grunt work of their society, and those people do not agree with the system at all, and will be their undoing).

There seemed to be times where established political figures wished to create a new party entirely rather than assume control of the Socialist or leftist established parties, which tended to have their own defined echelons and party intrigue/infighting. Sen. Bob La Follette of Wisconsin tried to do that (Theodore Roosevelt for that matter with his “Bull Moose Progressives”, which was more a personal vehicle for him).

You also had the American Labor Party (which was a New York creation), which Fiorello LaGuardia used for a time (though he still considered himself a Republican). It had far-left officeholders that ran on its line (including future Sen. Jacob Javits - that aforementioned NY Socialist I spoke to considered Javits “one of theirs” in his own words). Vito Marcantonio was a Congressman from NYC who became the standard-bearer for the ALP. He had served a term as a Republican in 1934, when he ran for reelection in 1936, he ran as a Communist-Republican (but lost). He made his comeback in 1938 as the ALP supplanted the Communist line and served until 1951, when the Democrats were able to dispatch him. Marcantonio was the lightning rod for the right, as he was viewed as the most leftist member of Congress. How you voted with or against him was often a measure used to see how right or wrong you were (Nixon used him against Helen Gahagan Douglas in their 1950 Senate race).

Henry Wallace’s Progressives of 1948 (a new creation) fizzled quickly (for that matter, so did the Dixiecrats, although that epithet for racist Democrats have lasted to today). NY also formed another left-wing party, the Liberals. This was actually supposed to be a national vehicle for Wendell Willkie following his loss in 1940 for President, which he intended to use first to run for Mayor of NYC and later President again. Willkie’s untimely death in 1944 ended that, though they party lasted for some time. Curiously, when FDR, Jr. ran for Congress in NYC, he couldn’t get the Democrat line, so he ran as the Liberal nominee and won.

Getting back to Thomas for a moment, who lived until 1968 (long enough to see Vietnam in full swing and to aggressively oppose the war), it seemed for decades he attempted to rally and coherently organize the disparate and fractious groups of the left while trying to maintain his anti-Communism. Ultimately, I believe the Democrats co-opted a lot of their agenda (Hubert Humphrey was more of a Thomas Socialist, a left-winger while claiming to be anti-Communist). It was Thomas’s predecessor, Eugene V. Debs, who I believe prognosticated that one of the major parties would eventually do just that, and was fine with it.