The center-left group Third Way held a conference last week where moderate Democratic strategists and politicians blasted progressive ideas and the party’s left wing. Third Way and other centrist Democratic groups espouse positions such as opposing Medicare for All and wealth taxes. In Washington, the idea that these groups speak for moderates across the country is never questioned. But now, some evidence is emerging that suggests Democratic voters who describe themselves as moderate are in a different place. They want Democrats to push harder to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations and don’t think the party is overly liberal on issues such as abortion and transgender rights.
This distinction between moderate Democratic voters and the party’s moderate elites is critical to understand. Moderate Democratic voters are not centrists clamoring for a return to the Clinton era or rebukes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. So progressive groups and politicians can probably push rank and file Democratic voters to the left on a wide range of issues. And more center-left Democratic politicians must (and increasingly do) adopt more progressive positions to remain viable in a party where even the people who call themselves moderate have fairly liberal views.
I’m basing this analysis in part on a recent poll of some 2,400 prime Democratic voters (those who vote regularly in primaries) conducted in January on behalf of The New Republic by Embold Research. Respondents were given five choices to describe their ideology: conservative, moderate, moderate-to-liberal, liberal, and progressive. Only 12 percent said they identify as moderate, while another 21 percent called themselves moderate-to-liberal. And the interesting thing is that even among those two groups, their beliefs are pretty liberal.
Around 70 percent of moderates (combining the moderate and moderate-to-liberal respondents) said Democrats are “too timid” in taxing the rich, taxing corporations, and cracking down on companies that break the law. A clear majority of moderates said the party is too timid in regulating Big Tech companies. Fewer than 5 percent of moderates said Democrats are “too aggressive” in their dealings with the rich, corporations, and Big Tech.
On other issues, from government spending to fighting climate change to LGBTQ rights, the overwhelming majority of moderate respondents said that Democrats’ positions are “about right.”
Overall, about 70 percent of moderate Democrats think the party’s economic policy positions are about right, compared to around 15 percent who think those stances are too liberal and another 15 percent who think they are too conservative. On social issues, about 65 percent of moderate Democrats are aligned with the party’s stances, while about 25 percent think the party’s positions are too liberal and 10 percent think they are too conservative.
Other polls have similar findings. For example, recent Strength in Numbers/Verasight surveys show that 74 percent of moderate Democrats favor the creation of a single-payer health care system, and 67 percent of them support increased taxes on households with incomes above $400,000. Seventy percent of moderate Democrats have favorable views of Sanders, compared to only 20 percent who view him unfavorably, according to a Data for Progress survey conducted last month.
These numbers are remarkable when you consider the discourse about the Democratic Party. There has been a constant drumbeat over the last decade, particularly in the months after the 2024 election, that the party’s progressive wing is full of woke, over-educated scolds out of step with average Democrats. What this data suggests is that moderate Democratic voters are fully in line with the growing economic populism in the party and actually want more of it. And on social issues, they aren’t as worried about a Democratic Party that strongly defends transgender people and abortion rights as many centrist pundits are.
To be sure, there are differences within the party. Liberals and progressives are (of course) even more left wing on all of these issues. In the TNR survey, a whopping 63 percent of progressives think Democrats are too conservative on economic issues. (Only about 15 percent of moderates think that.) Ninety-three percent of progressives think Democrats are too timid about taking on the rich.
There are also demographic differences. The party’s moderate bloc has more African Americans, people without college degrees, people between ages 50-65, and people with family incomes below $50,000 than the party overall. The progressives are younger, whiter, richer, and more educated than the broader party.
And none of these surveys asked respondents about defunding police departments, abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, canceling education debt, and other firmly left-wing positions that might have shown a bigger gap between progressives and moderates and more outright opposition from moderates.
But the overall picture is one where even the most moderate Democrats aren’t clamoring for a more aggressively centrist or conservative Democratic Party.
This data has important implications. Politicians associated with the party’s center-left wing, such as new governors Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, often take populist and progressive actions. That’s probably because that’s where their voters are. Sherrill and Spanberger are cracking down on ICE’s conduct in their states because that’s what even moderate Democrats want. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who has also positioned himself as a moderate and is considering a 2028 presidential run, is warning corporations currently collaborating with the Trump administration that Democrats will break them up if they get back into power. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is also courting moderates by attacking the wealthy.
The party’s growing liberalism doesn’t mean that Ocasio-Cortez will cruise to the 2028 nomination. What it means is that taking some progressive stands, particularly on economic issues, is probably a necessity for even 2028 candidates such as Governors Andy Beshear and Josh Shapiro who are trying to appeal to moderate voters. And more progressive hopefuls such as Ocasio-Cortez and Representative Ro Khanna have a real chance to win the nomination if they can convince moderate voters that they could win a general election.
This data also presents some real challenges for groups such as Third Way who don’t want the party to move left on policy. In an interview with The New York Times last week, Third Way president Jon Cowan praised Democratic politicians who have been critical of teachers unions and increased taxes on billionaires and supportive of more aggressive immigration enforcement. He said Third Way would be promoting candidates with such centrist stands in the 2028 primary. Good luck with that, Jon. (I don’t actually wish him good luck.) It is not 1992. There is no evidence that Democratic voters are clamoring for candidates who distance themselves from progressive policies. Nor are there signs that Democratic voters are so despondent about the party’s prospects of winning a general election that they will accept a nominee with a Republican-lite platform.
These surveys suggest moderate voters are not like the people who purport to speak for them. And that’s crucial for Democratic candidates and strategists as well as journalists to understand. A moderate Democratic candidate can (and should) be someone who wants to tax the rich, regulate the powerful, and support the vulnerable. In praise of 2026-style moderation.
