As Zohran Mamdani greeted supporters following his upset victory over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June, the chants erupting around him weren’t about pragmatism or compromise—they were about housing, justice and revenge against a system he said had failed ordinary people.
“This wasn’t just a primary,” Mamdani told the crowd. “This was a referendum on a crumbling status quo.”
The 33-year-old democratic socialist’s victory wasn’t just a local surprise; it symbolizes a broader political shift. Across the nation, more voters—urban and rural, working-class and professional—are rejecting technocratic centrism in favor of leaders who promise to fight, not finesse.
For decades, “moderation” in U.S. politics was synonymous with stability. The Reagan era’s embrace of supply-side economics in the 1980s set a conservative template; the Clinton years extended it through “Third Way” centrism—balanced budgets, free trade, welfare reform. The pitch: a steady hand at the wheel.
But the underlying economy didn’t support that narrative for long. From 1980 to 2020, the top 1 percent went from controlling 25 percent of national wealth to nearly 40 percent, according to Federal Reserve data. Over the same period, wage growth for middle- and lower-income workers stagnated.
Housing costs also jumped 300 percent in urban areas, far outpacing income. By 2024, Gallup reported just 34 percent of Americans identified as moderate—down from over 40 percent in the early 1990s—while self-identified conservatives and liberals reached historic highs.
“Moderation meant compromise—not excitement. People lost faith that those deals ever made a difference at their own dining table,” Mike Madrid, a political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, told Newsweek. “When rent and tuition cost more than your paycheck, a handshake won’t help.”
As the 2024 election made clear, politics is now filtered through the realities of inflation and affordability. Inflation peaked above 9 percent in 2022 and remains stubbornly elevated; nearly 40 percent of Americans say the cost of groceries is their biggest concern, a July AP-NORC poll found.
Mamdani’s win in New York was the clearest sign of this mood on the left: a candidate who spoke bluntly about rent, wages and fairness defeating a seasoned moderate with a long career in public service, even if it ended in disgrace. Democrats have often hesitated to fully embrace that message, but Republicans have done the opposite with Donald Trump—rallying quickly and decisively around a single figure who steadily pushed moderates out of his party.
MAGA: The First Rebellion
The first real test of this shift came from the right. Donald Trump’s rise in 2016 marked a direct challenge to Republican orthodoxy, promising to fight for those left behind by globalization while mocking the party’s traditional leadership.
By 2025, the transformation was complete. A mid-2025 Gallup survey found that 77 percent of Republicans identified as conservative, while moderates dropped to a historic low of 18 percent. And even as the president’s overall popularity has slipped in his second term, more than 85 percent of Republicans still approve of Trump’s leadership.
“Republicans have near unanimity in supporting Donald Trump, and he is exhibiting strong leadership,” Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek. “Contrast this sharply with Mitt Romney‘s loss in the 2012 presidential election and the Republican Party being rudderless.”
It was a hostile takeover of a party that once valued calm stewardship and corporate-friendly conservatism. Mitt Romney was sidelined. John McCain fought Trump until his death in 2018. George W. Bush‘s brand of “compassionate conservatism” was shelved before he even left office. Liz Cheney was cast out of House leadership and lost her Wyoming seat after defying Trump on January 6. Paul Ryan walked away from Congress as Trump’s grip tightened. Marco Rubio fell in line and now serves as his secretary of state. One by one, the party’s old guard was replaced, leaving the GOP remade in Trump’s image.
But Trump’s consolidation of the GOP is only half the story. His political rise has also reordered the map of American politics in ways that continue to haunt Democrats. According to a New York Times analysis, Trump improved Republican margins in nearly half of U.S. counties across his three presidential campaigns—1,433 in all—while Democrats gained ground in just 57.
The Democrats’ Mamdani Dilemma
Mamdani’s primary upset in New York reflects a similar shift on the left. His platform—rent freezes, city-owned grocer stores, free bus service, steep taxes on the wealthy—was more blueprint than compromise. His backers are not looking for a manager; they want a revolution.
And the numbers show their enthusiasm. In the June primary, Mamdani defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo by 12 percentage points, earning 56.4 percent of the final round of ranked-choice votes to Cuomo’s 43.6 percent—a decisive victory for an underdog few expected to win.
But the Democratic establishment has kept him at arm’s length, despite polls showing Mamdani likely to win the general election in November. Weeks after his win, half of the state’s top Democrats still hadn’t endorsed him. Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all stayed silent—often mumbling through media appearances when pressed on the subject.
“It is pathetic,” said former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau during a recent episode of Pod Save America, the popular liberal podcast. “Donald Trump’s going to try to get Eric Adams out of the race so that he can help Andrew Cuomo. Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have not yet endorsed the candidate who won the Democratic primary in New York City—the choice of Democratic voters,” he added.
For some on the left, dissatisfaction with Democratic leadership has reignited a longstanding debate about the party’s future. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has even suggested that progressives consider running as independents rather than as Democrats.
“If there’s any hope for the Democratic Party, it is that they’re going to have to reach out—open the doors and let working-class people in,” Sanders said during his “Stopping Oligarchy” tour, a five-city rally alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aimed at mobilizing resistance to Trump, Elon Musk, and what they describe as a billionaire-led assault on American government.
“If not, people will be running as independents, I think, all over this country.”
“We’re seeing Democrats in New York who want to flip the tables over, much like Republicans did in their Tea Party moment,” Madrid, the political analyst, told Newsweek. “Voters seem to be asking their politicians to take a stand and adopt clear positions, and I think one of the reasons the Democratic campaign lost last year was because the positions weren’t clear enough.”
Can the Center Hold?
Not all centrists are fading. But they no longer sell themselves. Survival now depends less on policy and more on posture. Candidates who look like fighters—even if their actual politics are relatively moderate—are the ones breaking through.
In Arizona, Senator Ruben Gallego offered a glimpse of what that looks like. Running in a state Donald Trump carried, Gallego didn’t try to tiptoe around culture wars or triangulate. He leaned into toughness, telling voters he would fight for wages, affordability, and border security while refusing to get pulled into debates over “masculinity” that have roiled both parties.
“A lot of times we forget that we still need men to vote for us. That’s how we still win elections. But we don’t really talk about making the lives of men better, working to make sure that they have wages so they can support their families,” Gallego said in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times Magazine.
“He’s not playing both sides,” Madrid told Newsweek. “He’s saying: I’ll go fight and I’ll come home with results. People see that. They want that posture. His win showed that even in red states, a Democrat could compete if they looked like someone ready to brawl for ordinary people.”
The same instinct is showing up elsewhere. California Governor Gavin Newsom, once accused of hedging or “fence sitting,” on divisive issues, has adopted a more aggressive style in his battles with Trump, boosting his standing in Democratic primaries. Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders still draw crowds because they fight visibly.
“The lesson for Democrats is to stop talking only to their base,” Madrid said. “You can have politicians in the very center of the party like Gallego or on the far left like Mamdani, and both are succeeding right now.”
Klink, the veteran GOP strategist, also warned that moderation without fire simply doesn’t cut through anymore. “Generally, Democrats fare better when they nominate a moderate candidate,” he said. “But the base decides the pace. Moderates decide the margin. Without base energy—without fight and authenticity—you’re invisible.”
While Democrats are still grappling with whether to embrace the party’s more radical flank or hold to the center, the picture inside the GOP is far clearer. Trump has already answered the question for Republicans: the path to power runs through him. Where Democrats debate strategy and identity, Republicans measure their future in degrees of loyalty to the president.
A CBS News/YouGov survey found that 65 percent of Republican voters say loyalty to Trump is important, with more than a third calling it “very important.” In practice, that has meant dissenters often retreat when it matters. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has voiced concerns about Trump’s hold on the party but still voted for his signature “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia briefly criticized the package, then fell back in line to support it.
After months of friction with the White House, Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Don Bacon announced their retirements rather than continue testing their luck in a party where deviation is punished and loyalty is prized. In today’s Trumpist party, such departures have become increasingly rare — simply because so few dissenters remain.
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