Centrists Shrank the Democratic Tent. Only the Left Can Expand It.

Motivated by their personal agenda, establishment Democrats pushed voters away in 2024. To repair that damage, the party needs a left-wing agenda.

Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries

Almost halfway between the 2024 Presidential election and the 2026 midterms, the Democratic Party has yet to align on a compelling message to bring to voters. Currently, there are two strands of thought within the former Democratic coalition. (I say ‘former’ because, as we’ll discuss, the Democrats kicked many voters out of their tent in 2024.) On one side are the left-wing progressives, represented by figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. The left faction argues that progressive populism is the key to defeating Republican fascism, and they frequently center issues such as universal health insurance and a higher minimum wage. Opposing them is the embedded centrist establishment, which argues Democrats need to move to the right to attract traditional Republican voters. Represented by Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Gavin Newsom (as well as a class of well-connected, high-profile pundits we’ll discuss further on), the centrist faction prioritizes allegiance to Israel, neoliberalism (or its rebrand ‘Abundance’), and a promise to bring responsible governance back to Washington, D.C.

On its face, the centrist argument appears to hold merit: Whoever receives the most votes wins the election, so Democrats should “expand their tent” by attracting conservative voters. Seems simple enough. However, centrists go wrong in believing the tent should be expanded by moving to the right. Pursuit of the mythical never-Trump conservative voter was the core of Kamala Harris’s political strategy, which received full-throated support from the liberal commentariat. She moved right on immigration, Israel, and closed the campaign with a message of “country over party.” As available evidence shows, this strategy of “moderation” (I dispute that term, for what it’s worth) shrank the tent by expelling voters while failing to attract new ones, easing Trump’s return to the White House. While centrist Democrats and their media allies insist the key is to go even further right, this is a bad idea. From a purely practical perspective, Democrats will need to move left to repair the damage done by centrists if they want to win contested elections.

Harris and Liz Cheney in October of 2024. As part of her strategy to move to the right, Harris appeared with Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney, more than Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Shawn Fain during the last month of the campaign.

There were two primary ways in which the Democrats’ Republican Lite strategy alienated voters. The first was the Holy Grail of American politics, the economy.

According to a recent study by Lake Research Group and Way to Win, Harris’s corporate-friendly centrism cost her. Among swing-state voters who voted for Biden in 2020 but didn’t vote in 2024, the leading reason for their non-vote was that Harris’s economic agenda failed to compel them. While these Harris Skippers view Democrats in Congress more favorably than the public (+40%), their most-liked politicians are Bernie Sanders and AOC (below), indicating a preference for a progressive agenda.¹ If forced to vote, only 25% would have voted for Trump, meaning the majority of Harris Skippers were gettable voters lost by Harris’s stale, corporatist policies.

While polls are helpful, the strongest indication that voters want worker-friendly economics is the 2024 election itself. Six states held voter referendums on economic issues in 2024. All of the states that took the labor-friendly position voted for Trump. Arizona strongly rejected a decrease in tipped-worker pay, while Alaska (Trump +13.1%) and Missouri (Trump +18.4%) approved a $15 minimum wage and required paid sick leave. Nebraska (Trump +20.4%) voters also passed a requirement for paid sick leave.² When a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 was in Congress in February 2021, Harris, serving as President of the Senate, sat quietly as the parliamentarian stripped it from the bill on dubious grounds. Though Harris paid lip service to these issues on the campaign trail, as the Harris Skippers tell us, it wasn’t nearly enough to overcome her past opposition.

Going forward, bold, pro-worker economic policies are the key to re-expanding the tent that the establishment shrank in 2024. A study from The University of Maryland found that a $15 wage was favored by 65% of Americans, 64% of independents, and 58% of Republican households with annual incomes of less than $50,000. That same study found 74% of Republicans think the minimum wage should be at least $12 an hour, a drastic 66% increase over the current $7.25.³ Pew Research has collaborated these findings, discovering 62% of Americans support a $15 minimum wage, and Data For Progress found 64% support for $17 an hour.⁴⁵ Support for paid sick leave, a long-time issue of Bernie Sanders, is even higher: three-fourths of Americans think employers should be required to offer paid sick leave.⁶⁷ If Democrats want to grow their political base beyond its current sickly, shriveled contingency, they’ll need to stop listening to voices that promise just one more round of deregulation will do the trick. Instead, criticize corporations and deliver social democratic reforms. Otherwise, the chance of success is slim.

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In addition to Kamala Harris’s choice to turn away from economic populism, the establishment’s support for genocidal Zionism is also responsible for pushing away potential Harris voters and putting Donald Trump back in the White House (as well as killing thousands of Palestinians). As far back as March 2024, a majority of Americans wanted the Biden Administration to stop sending Israel weapons.⁸ Those who hoped for a policy change following Biden’s exit were quickly disheartened, as Harris promised ‘no change’ to weapons shipments during her first interview as the nominee.⁹

Much like on economics, the Harris campaign went out of its way to ignore the flashing red warning lights that supporting Israel’s genocide would cost votes. When door-to-door canvassers reported voters were bringing up Gaza, the campaign told them to mark all Palestine-related concerns as “no response” in feedback surveys.¹⁰ As Harris has since admitted to in her book, 107 Days, the ‘Gaza issue’ was a political liability for Democrats that lost them younger, more progressive voters. Centrists didn’t “miss” the voters concerned about Gaza — they actively plugged their ears and shouted “Nah Nah I can’t hear you!” because criticizing Israel was personally discomforting to them. Instead of expanding the tent by listening to voters’ concerns, the campaign sent Bill Fucking Clinton to Michigan (which has the highest Arab-American percentage population) days before the election to rant about how Palestine is actually Judea and Samaria and dead Gazans had it coming. Three days later, Trump won Michigan by less than 2%. Good job, dipshits.

Hell of a closing message!

To repair the damage and attract the most voters to win close political races, the Democrats will need to pivot hard to their left and run anti-Zionist candidates. As the genocide has continued, more and more Americans find themselves opposing Israel. Support for a weapons embargo has now increased to 60% of all Americans, including 66% of independents.¹¹ Less than 35% of Americans hold a favorable view of the Israeli government, and Israel’s starvation and killing of Palestinians are voters’ top concerns pertaining to the conflict.¹² The New York Times, which is egregiously apologetic for Israel, found a strong plurality of Americans think Israel is intentionally killing civilians.¹³

While centrist figures position themselves as the sober sages telling hard truths to idealist leftists, analysis of the Democrats’ centrist 2024 presidential campaign shows it was their strict ideological control over the party that alienated likely voters and resulted in a trifecta loss. As we’ve seen, left-wing economic policies such as raising the minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick leave, and increasing union density, as well as ending weapons shipments to Israel and condemning Zionist imperialism were winning issues the establishment chose to ignore because they challenged their personal beliefs. As if rolling out the red carpet for Donald Trump second inauguration wasn’t bad enough, the same usual suspects have filled their echo chamber with noxious gas, creating a delusional excuse that the Democrats lost because they weren’t conservative enough. Scapegoating the left started minutes after the 2024 race was called, but it’s only grown more desperate (and psychotic) as the progressive faction has been emboldened by energetic candidates like Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner while Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries plunge to floor-shattering lows. I’m sure arguing for another rightward pivot is well-received at AbundanceFest or on Capitol Hill, but the myth of too-progressive Democrats bursts upon first contact with reality.

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A perfect example of centrism’s desperate excuses was seen in Ezra Klein’s recent discussion with Ross Douthat, where he suggested Democrats should pursue a big-tent path strategy by running anti-choice candidates in Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri:

“My view is that a lot of people who embrace alarm don’t embrace what I think obviously follows from that alarm, which is the willingness to make strategic and political decisions you find personally discomforting, even though they are obviously more likely to help you win. Taking political positions that’ll make it more likely to win Senate seats in Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri. Trying to open your coalition to people you didn’t want it open to before [by] running pro-life Democrats.”¹⁴

If the goal is to win elections, this is terrible advice. In 2024, ten states held voter referendums on expanding reproductive rights. Voters in seven states affirmed the pro-choice position. Of those seven states, the majority also voted for Trump — Arizona (Trump +5.5%), Missouri (+18.4%), Montana (+20%), and Nevada (+3.1%). Florida’s (Trump + 13.1%) referendum failed to pass the 60% threshold, but a majority of voters (58%) voted for it.¹⁵ Note that two of the three states Ezra Klein suggested Democrats should abandon reproductive rights in —Kansas and Missouri — passed pro-choice referendums while voting for Trump. The third state he mentioned, Ohio (Trump +11.2%), enshrined a right to abortion in the state constitution in 2023.¹⁶ The electoral success of pro-choice politics is supported by contemporary polling. According to the AP/University of Chicago study, 64% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all (25%) or most (38%) cases. Comparatively, only 36% think the procedure should be banned in all (9%) or most (27%) cases.¹⁷ By every conceivable metric, abortion is a winning issue for Democrats, even in red states. Sacrificing a pillar of Democratic politics would not only deflate the base (if there’s any lesson to take from Trump, it’s that an energized base can carry you very far), but it would also turn progressive, liberal, centrist, and even some conservatives away from Democratic candidates. Klein’s willingness to sacrifice reproductive rights to shield his ideology and political allies reminds me of the classic last-ditch effort a failing football coach uses to try and save his job. When a team is on a losing streak and the head coach knows the fans want him gone, he benches the quarterback to shift the blame off his shoulders. “Democrats should abandon reproductive rights, their most popular issue” is something one only says if they need somewhere else to point the finger.

Attempting to help his former business partner remove his foot from his mouth,

Matthew Yglesias

polished Klein’s kerfuffle with an essay arguing Democrats need to move right to expand the tent. Much like Klein, Yglesias describes himself as the practical, level-headed analysts who provide uncomfortable yet hard truths to idealistic leftists. Here’s Yglesias describing Klein’s conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, who had been critical of Klein’s recent statements (the emphasis is his):

“I completely respect Coates’s desire to write about how he feels rather than to write about the strategic and tactical implications of his views. At the same time, though, what happens in electoral politics is a really big deal. Someone has to consider the strategic and tactical implications.”

This is 100% true. If you’re going to compete in electoral politics, the path to victory requires compromises, retreats, collaborations, and other strategic maneuvers. However, Matt Yglesias is not considering the strategic and tactical implications. Like Klein, he’s pushing an ideological agenda that ignores political reality in favor of what he finds personally comfortable. In the same article, Yglesias writes this about Medicare For All:

“Medicare is great. I believe everyone should have health insurance, and so I’ve supported Medicare for All bills in the past. But we’re in a cost-of-living crisis right now, and I think voters want fast urgent action on bringing prices down, not a gigantic controversial legislative battle on reshaping the entire health care system. So, I want to extend premium tax credits, speed up the approval of new drugs, clear out red tape that makes it harder for medical providers to expand, stop scams that let hospitals overcharge Medicare, and do everything possible to make sure the possibilities of artificial intelligence in the health care space are accessible for everyone.”

This is wrong. In July, The Economist, which was once accurately described as a ‘silly journal that speaks for British millionaires,’ found 59% of Americans and 57% of independents want Medicare for All.¹⁸ In a hypothetical matchup between a pro-MFA Democrat and an anti-MFA Republican, the Democrat would start with a 32-point lead on a central healthcare issue, which is extremely important to most Americans who predict healthcare costs will only increase in the future.¹⁹ Voters are very-interested in reshaping the American healthcare system. Rather than engage with voters’ wishes, Yglesias throws cold water on Medicare For All because it would be unpopular in the establishment circles he runs in.

What Klein and Yglesias have offered is a sanitized version of the Schrödinger’s Leftist Theory — the centrist claim that leftists are simultaneously so powerful that they control the Democratic Party, yet too weak to win a general election. While they dress their arguments up as apolitical, reasonable advice, their inaccurate claims about abortion and healthcare policy come from the same panicked brand management as some of the less-contained pundits. Namely, Jonathan Chait. On Monday, Chait published an article in The Atlantic claiming the Democrats were too hamstrung by progressive interest groups, which lost them the 2024 election. To paint a fantastical picture of supposed leftist control, Chait blamed the ACLU’s 2020 questionnaire for Harris’s 2024 loss (?), says Harris was only on Biden’s ticket because activists “demanded” a Black woman (??), and, most insanely, said Hillary Clinton ran to Bernie Sanders’ left in 2016 (???).²⁰ Rather than point out all the obvious lies of Jonathan Chait, I’ll simply let Jonathan Chait do so. In August of 2024, Chait wrote in an article titled “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Need to Pivot to the Center Right Now.” Two months later, he congratulated the ticket for following his advice with a piece called titled, “The Race Is Close Because Harris Is Running a Brilliant Campaign: Stop Complaining; The Centrism is Working.”

Chait wrote all of these within one year.

Chait, Yglesias, and Klein are not the sum-total of the Democratic establishment, but they are the most visible members of the Centrist Mind Hive — an echo chamber of liberal consultants, staffers, congresspeople, Senators, and thousands of other political insiders with financial, social, and egotistical stake in keeping things the way they are. But as American voters have told surveyors and Democratic campaigns, and shown through their votes, they don’t want the status quo to remain. It’s not working for them. They want change, which was promised to them in 2008 but never delivered. This threatens the Democratic establishment, which is more concerned with preserving the establishment — and their privileged place within it — than it is with meeting Americans’ needs. As nonsensical and unrealistic as their arguments are, they’ll only get worse. Clear contradictions and blatant retconning can be frustrating for those of us who see politics as a way to improve the country and the lives of its citizens. I know it is for me. But we should also find comfort in centrists’ delusional scapegoating and pathetic attempts to rewrite history. Everything we’ve seen from Klein, Harris, Chait, Yglesias, Miller, and other Democratic centrists is a sign of the establishment’s weakness. They’re crying foul because centrist liberalism has nowhere else to go: it has nothing else to offer American, not even its once-intriguing promise of blocking Republican fascism from taking power. There is no one to blame but themselves. If left in place, the Democratic establishment will continue to shrink the coalition, leaving the nation unprotected from the worst threat to safety and security in my lifetime.

It’ll be difficult. But I think we should try and stop them.

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In solidarity — Joe

1. https://waytowin.docsend.com/view/rnv5sptpzsqxy6k4

2. https://ballotpedia.org/Results_for_minimum_wage_and_labor-related_ballot_measures,_2024

3. https://publicconsultation.org/low-income-assistance/two-thirds-of-voters-favor-a-15-federal-minimum-wage-12-gets-bipartisan-support/

4. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/04/22/most-americans-support-a-15-federal-minimum-wage/

5. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/4/26/voters-think-its-time-to-raise-the-minimum-wage

6. https://navigatorresearch.org/creating-a-nationwide-paid-leave-program-and-bolstering-medicares-negotiating-power-are-overwhelmingly-popular/

7. https://www.cityhealth.org/resource/earned-sick-leave-opinion-april-2020/

8. https://cepr.net/newsroom/poll-majority-of-americans-say-biden-should-halt-weapons-shipments-to-israel/

9. https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/kamala-harris-israel-gaza-cnn-biden-rcna168949

10. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/uncommitted-leaders-stand-2024-strategy-trump-floats-gaza-takeover-rcna190782

11. https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3929

12. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/10/03/how-americans-view-the-israel-hamas-conflict-2-years-into-the-war/

13. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/polls/israel-gaza-war-us-poll.html

14. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/opinion/interesting-times-ross-douthat-ezra-klein.html

15. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?admin1=32&election-data-id=2024-PG&selected-election-data-id=2024-PG-NV&election-painting-mode=projection-with-lead&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false&filter-remaining=false

16. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/11/07/ohio-voters-pass-issue-1-constitutional-amendment-to-protect-abortion-and-reproductive-rights/

17. https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/11/abortion-rights-state-ballot-measures-2024

18. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52500-donald-trump-budget-health-care-tariffs-abortion-july-4-7-2025-economist-yougov-poll

19. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/kff-health-tracking-poll-public-weighs-health-care-spending-and-other-priorities-for-incoming-administration/

20. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/democratic-party-strategy-progressives/684453/