Both moderate and progressive Democrats have a case to make that they won big in last week’s midterm elections. And while both camps broadly agree on what problems Democrats should focus on next year, there is already disagreement on exactly how to tackle them.
Veteran Democrats are calling for quick compromises, arguing that infighting could cost Democrats their governing majority and even the presidency in 2028.
“What’s not lost on us is that the Democratic Party writ large has a historically low popularity rating,” said John Anzalone, who served as the chief pollster for Joe Biden’s winning 2020 campaign. To improve the party’s standing ahead of the next presidential election, Anzalone said Democrats of all stripes need to unite on “an economic agenda that helps working families, seniors and small businesses.”
Here’s what to know about what progressives and moderates in the Democratic Party want.
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What progressives want
Progressives didn’t just win in major cities; they also flipped battleground districts in Michigan, Colorado and Texas. They won in one of the most Republican counties in California and in western Montana, where smoke-jumping firefighter Sam Forstag became the first Democrat elected to Congress from Montana in more than 30 years.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the House. He said his group has plans to pass legislation focused on lowering health care costs and getting big money out of politics.
“We won such a big victory that we are not going to settle for one progressive bill on the first day,” Cesar said in a call with reporters the day after the election. “Every single week, we should be sending a bill to Donald Trump’s desk that cracks down on corporate greed and price gouging and big money and politics.”
Getting out of foreign wars is another big goal for the left.
“We have a mandate to pass a war powers resolution to restrain further hostilities in Iran,” William Lawrence, a progressive incoming member of Congress from Michigan, said in a call with reporters last week. “And I also heard that people don’t want to see any more of our weapons or tax dollars going to Israel to perpetuate monstrosities in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Progressives and democratic socialists are not necessarily the same thing
Congress’s new democratic socialists, who will hold eight House seats next year, want to push things even further. Their basic agenda includes universal health care, universal college, universal child care, publicly held housing and a significant increase in the minimum wage. However, given the size of Democrats’ upcoming House majority, they are unlikely to have the numbers to extract concessions on their priorities.
“What democratic socialism says is our core needs, like food and shelter, has to be the most basic needs for every single human being, but most especially working people,” Rep.-elect Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist who unseated a 30-year incumbent representing Denver, said in an interview over the summer.
What moderates want
Moderates argue that they won more races — and by bigger margins — than progressives, so they should have a major say in which policies Democrats pursue.
“What Democrats need to remember is that for the first time in a long time, we now are a party that is not dominated by the coasts,” said Jim Kessler, vice president at the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way. “We have elected officials in the interior of the country.”
Democrats should take measured steps, such as raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations or expanding health care, Kessler said, but not through policies such as the broad wealth tax that failed in California or Medicare-for-all.
“We won because we were talking about issues that voters cared about more than issues that progressives cared about,” Kessler said.
“What won over rural voters for Democrats,” added Cheri Bustos, a former Democratic member of Congress who represented a district in Illinois with a significant rural population, “was message discipline by nearly every Democrat who did their best to stay away from cultural issues and focus on getting money out of politics and back in people’s pockets.”
So far, both wings of the party say that affordability is their top goal, though it’s not clear how the party will go about that.
“The Democratic Party, from center to farther left, was incredibly aligned and disciplined on the cost of living,” said Debbie Cox Bultan, who heads NewDeal, a coalition of center-left state and local leaders. “So there might be disagreements about how best to bring down costs, but I’m heartened by the fact we’re all singing off the same song sheet now.”
Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
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