DOUG SCHOEN: Democratic battle pits moderates vs. progressives for soul of the party
Democrats are undoubtedly favored to retake the House in November’s midterms, and their odds of taking the Senate have jumped in recent weeks.
Political betting site Polymarket gives Democrats an 86% chance to take the House, and now they even have a slight lead in the Senate.
That said, the prospects for Democrats’ short-term success may be overshadowing what could be a defining moment in American politics.
Specifically, Democrats’ intra-party dispute over which wing of the party will control their direction, messaging, ideas and principles: the seemingly moderate establishment or anti-establishment progressives?
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This fight will also determine who will be the party’s standard bearer for the 2028 presidential election.
It is not a new conflict, although with midterms approaching – not to mention the 2028 campaign beginning to take shape – it has taken on renewed importance.
The end of April’s "No Kings" rally, initiated by the far-left wing, was embraced by both wings of the party, underscoring the growing influence of the extreme wing of the party over tactics, strategy, and messaging.
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Moreover, reports emerged stating that progressive Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tina Smith, D-Minn., met to gauge support for removing Sen. Chuck Schumer as Senate minority leader.
Schumer appears to be the latest casualty in this battle, one which has metastasized to pull in all Democrats, as the entire party has moved further to the left.
Unfortunately for those of us who believe that the health of American democracy is tied to having two viable parties, as the far-left forces the party further from the center, national Democrats may be setting themselves up for electoral suicide.
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Put another way, in order to be competitive, establishment Democrats must assert themselves with a more moderate agenda, rejecting progressive ideas on hot-button issues like transgender policies, ICE and immigration, and diversity, equity, inclusion.
To be sure, today’s establishment Democrats are a far cry from what would be considered moderate not long ago.
When I worked for former President Bill Clinton, Democrats understood that to win, policies like balancing the budget, securing the border, tightening welfare requirements and being tough on crime were essential.
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In a sign of how far left the Democratic Party has moved, former President Barack Obama – lionized by many liberals today – was initially publicly opposed to gay marriage and race-based identity politics.
Obama’s initial opposition to those policies would put him starkly at odds with where progressives have steered the Democratic Party today.
Even former President Joe Biden ran as a moderate in 2020.
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Then, he governed as a progressive, tarnishing his administration to the point his vice president lost the popular vote, something no Democrat had done in 20 years.
In other words, despite Democrats’ drastic shift left, today’s so-called moderates must act as a bulwark against a slide into national irrelevancy. Failure to do so would be a level of irresponsibility the country can ill-afford.
To that point, despite numerous studies – including from Third Way and Split Ticket – showing that moderate Democrats do better than progressives in competitive races, the Democratic Party continues drifting further from the median voter.
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Consider that in recent weeks, when the Senate took up a proposal to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports, every Democratic senator who was present voted against.
It seems that these Senators – and the party writ large – learned nothing from the 2024 campaign.
Then-candidate Donald Trump’s "Kamala is for they/them, I am for you" ad was, for lack of a better word, ruining for Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Even when California Gov. Gavin Newsom – nobody’s idea of a moderate yet a Democrat who has reached out to Republicans for his podcast – had the temerity to declare that he disagrees with girls playing against biological males, progressives pilloried him.
The risk of the far-left driving Democrats out of contention for national elections extends beyond transgender issues.
Progressive ideas on the economy, immigration and ICE, Israel and more may work in local elections, but are resounding failures on the national stage and will destroy Democrats’ 2028 chances.
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Ironically, Democratic voters recognize this, even if their elected officials – outside of a handful such as Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer – do not yet.
Polling from Gallup shows that Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independent voters prefer moderates to progressives generically when thinking about their vote.
Likewise, as journalist Matthew Yglesias noted, Democrats' "brand has become so toxic" that the party may need to "change their brand" by abandoning extreme – and unpopular – progressive positions.
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To be clear, this is not to suggest progressives cannot compete. In solid blue states and districts like New Jersey’s 11th or Illinois and other states, progressives will certainly win.
Rather, this is to make clear – if the 2024 election did not – that on a national level, Democrats need centrist, broad-based coalitions and a matching agenda to win.
And yet, Democrats appear poised to allow the far-left to dictate the party’s direction, leaving a rapidly shrinking minority of moderates.
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In fact, progressives’ obsession with wealth taxes has even made Newsom seem like a so-called moderate by comparison for opposing the levy due to the serious harm it could do to state economies.
Similarly, calls to defund ICE – like "defund the police" before it – have become so popular a catchphrase for the far-left that moderates who simply want reform to address overreach are increasingly silenced.
In no uncertain terms, if progressives succeed in rebranding the Democratic Party as the party of open borders, the Green New Deal, identity politics and abandoning Israel, Republicans will dominate the presidency for the foreseeable future.
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Only a few brave Democrats, Fetterman and Gottheimer amongst them, who have stood up against cutting off all aid – military and economic – to the Jewish state and recognize that, while flawed, Israel is certainly our most capable and vital ally in the Middle East.
To that end, there is a considerable amount of evidence that progressives are rapidly consolidating their power.
Recent Yahoo polling shows Newsom (19%) with a slight lead over Harris (18%).
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Behind the two front-runners are former Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg (13%) and "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (12%) – both progressives.
Ocasio-Cortez probably has the broadest appeal of any non-senator or former presidential candidate.
Her fundraising base is unmatched: last year her $15.4 million war chest was the biggest in the House, having pulled in nearly $10 million in just the first quarter.
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Axios reporting also suggests that she could raise "$100 million online without a single in-person fundraiser" while noting she’d be competitive against any Democrat in either a presidential or senate run.
Critically, both the growing power of progressives and the necessity of establishment Democrats to retake the center are due to the same reasons.
For the last decade, Democrats have been able to paper over their differences with a simple – yet nominally effective – strategy of running against Trump.
However, the ability to solely oppose an unpopular president is not enough to sustain a political party, notwithstanding its potential for short-term success in midterms.
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In order to win national elections going forward, Democrats need to build coalitions and not allow progressives to move the party outside the mainstream with unpopular – and arguably unworkable – policies.
Quite simply, Trump won 86% of the counties in this country, and Republicans control 28 state Houses to Democrats’ 18.
Our country is much closer to the center than progressives believe, as shown by the fact that there are entire states where Democrats, stained by the progressive agenda, cannot meaningfully contest statewide elections.
This fight for control of party leadership and its agenda is a defining division in American politics. How it plays out will be decisive this fall and more importantly, into 2028.