Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) is currently determining its new leader. Over the past years, the SPÖ has failed to make political headway in the context of inflation, declining real wages, rising rents and impoverishment as the largest opposition party. Following the debacle in the 2023 Carinthian election, the SPÖ decided to hold a membership referendum on who should lead the party into the future.Pamela Rendi-Wagner is supported by the party establishment, apparatchiks, and most former chancellors. She stands for a chic, capital-friendly, state-managerial, technocratic and “more of the same” SPÖ, devoid of the party’s working-class and trade-unionist tradition. Her main rival Hans Peter Doskozil, on the other hand, wants to push the party more to the right, following the Danish social democratic model. Doskozil presents himself as an anti-immigration hard-liner and as an advocate for minor social policy: tougher border protections, a more restrictive migration policy and an increase in the minimum wage.Yet the candidacy that has drawn the most attention was that of Andreas Babler. For many years, Babler has been a leading leftist voice within the SPÖ. With him, the party’s left has now, after decades of being disenfranchised, a real chance to assume the leadership. Babler's campaign has reminded the SPÖ of its radical roots. His campaign has shifted the public discourse to the left, and his program is comparable to the Green New Deal, proposed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US. Babler's candidacy has mobilized and re-politicized the party and Austrian civil society. The coming weeks will be crucial for defining the future of the SPÖ. Independently of the result in the referendum, Babler’s candidacy has shaken up the Austrian political landscape, possibly for years to come.