The centrist wing of the Democratic Party gathered on Wednesday in a hotel basement in downtown Washington with a grand plan.
The party should start winning, and stop losing.
Surveying the wreckage of the 2024 election, the proud moderates here pleaded that their faction should seize control of the party’s messaging, stiff-arm liberal interest groups and experience the spoils of real-life victory, all while ignoring angry online activists.
The Democrats in the room aimed to put a new sheen on — and perhaps some more spine in — what has long been tagged as the mushy middle, arguing that they are the majority-makers the party needs in 2026 and beyond to take control of Congress.
It was a wonky gathering where the center-left Substack pundit Matthew Yglesias was greeted like a rock star and Lakshya Jain, a data-crunching analyst, detailed a ratings system to show which Democratic lawmakers had the highest candidate-quality WAR — Wins Above Replacement — a term borrowed from baseball analytics.
“This room may be full of nerds,” said Andrew Mamo, a Democratic strategist who attended the conference, WelcomeFest. “But the focus is how to not look like losers — and how to not be losers.”
This event was not the place to debate the finer points of policy. There was glancingly little discussion beyond what would sell with voters. If some called it the “CPAC of the center” — after the big right-wing confab — there was far less red meat, and more crudités (a platter of chopped peppers, carrots and cauliflower was served in the back).
Instead, the thrust of the day’s discussion was dismissing the party’s left wing as an anchor to Democratic chances to win national elections. Scattered potshots were aimed at the activist group Indivisible throughout the day, with Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who represents the most pro-Trump district of any Democrat in the House, calling it “a hyper-national organization with a very single-minded agenda.”
One of the event’s organizers wore a West Virginia University football jersey — bearing the name and number of former Senator Joe Manchin III from when he played quarterback at the school. Interns distributed buttons urging people to sign up for a movement to keep the size of the Supreme Court at nine justices.
Nobody had anything good to say about people on social media.
“Being yelled at on Bluesky is good,” said Mr. Jain, who co-founded Split Ticket, an election analytics firm. Mocking people he sees as keyboard warriors who take shots at the center, he added: “You’re not fighting fascism, you’re posting on your phone. If you want to fight fascism, go and win elections.”
Bruises from digital bullying by the left were a recurring theme.
“The backlash that happens online is actually the sign that you’re doing something right,” said Adam Jentleson, a former chief of staff to Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. He has spent recent months preparing to establish a new think tank, called Searchlight, that he has billed as for political realists.
Some of the advice felt like Politics 101.
“A key to success in politics is to talk to people and to find out what they’re saying,” Representative Tom Suozzi of New York told the audience. “It has to be informed by real-life experiences.”
A parade of Democrats who had won in hostile districts and swing states offered paeans to pragmatism.
“Being on ‘Team Normal’ right now really helps,” said Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, who was tapped to deliver the party’s response to President Trump’s first congressional address this year. “People want practicality.”
The conference took place at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington as allies of the Blue Dog Coalition, the most moderate faction among House Democrats, are forming a new super PAC and an allied nonprofit group ahead of the 2026 midterms. The Blue Dogs have long had their own PAC but never independent entities that can take unlimited donations.
The new nonprofit, which has not been previously reported, will be called the Blue Dog Action Fund, with Aisha Woodward, a former chief of staff to Mr. Golden, serving as executive director and overseeing a staff of five.
“We’re willing to get involved in primaries, but our goal is to win the House majority,” said Phil Gardner, who will be a senior adviser to the groups and is a former campaign manager for Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State, a Blue Dog leader. “Which is going to require winning in seats that Trump won.”
The gathering on Wednesday was organized by Welcome PAC and supported by an array of center-left groups on and off Capitol Hill.
Adam Frisch, who ran twice for Congress in Colorado and lost while performing better than the top of the ticket, has joined Welcome PAC as an adviser and is hoping to recruit new candidates who do not fit the typical Democratic mold. He said he feared the party might win in 2026 without a course correction to set up sustained success.
“What I’m worried about in 2026 is like a ‘dead donkey bounce,’” Mr. Frisch said, borrowing a Wall Street phrase for an upward blip amid a broader decline.
Notably absent from the day’s panels, discussions and side conversations that included a handful of former Biden administration and campaign aides was the standard Democratic talk about abortion rights, gay rights and the importance of Black voters to the party. To a crowd that was mostly white, Mr. Jain said his research had found that the race and gender of a candidate did not matter.
Michael Ceraso, a progressive operative who made his way in, quipped: “It’s a good place to source a lot of white people.”
At one point, when Representative Ritchie Torres of New York was speaking, left-wing protesters stormed the stage chanting “Free Palestine” and unfurling banners about genocide.
The event organizers blasted the Carly Simon anthem “You’re So Vain” from the sound system during the interruption.
Liam Kerr, a co-founder of Welcome PAC who wore the West Virginia jersey, said the center was newly energized to take on the party’s left.
“Going against the status quo is always fun,” he said.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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