The Democratic Center Holds—For Now

Democratic elites breathed another sigh of relief after Tuesday’s Illinois primaries as the most radical progressive candidates for Congress all lost. The fact that many of the winners so far in Texas, North Carolina, and Illinois are still well to the left of the median voter, often coupled with a recent shift leftward, should give them pause. What works to win a Democratic primary may not be sellable to a national presidential electorate.

Centrist Democratic groups frequently stress that the road to the White House runs through the moderate, unaligned voter. Those voters, they say, tend to want to hear about traditional kitchen table concerns like jobs, inflation, and crime. The centrists advise focusing on these concerns and downplaying—or better yet, distinguishing their views from—the cultural issues where Democrats’ base voters are out of step.

These people make little secret of their desire that someone like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear will lead the 2028 ticket. Former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel is aggressively putting himself forward as another possible candidate in this lane. All seem to want to lean heavily to the center as they work to become this generation’s New Democrat, Clintonesque reformer.

That strategy is sound as far as it goes. The problem is that such a person needs to survive a Democratic primary where the majority of convention delegates will be chosen in safely Democratic states and congressional districts. To get to the center, then, the potential centrist savior first has to defeat or mollify the left.

That’s much easier said than done, and this year’s primaries so far show little proof that this is possible.

Texas is a case in point. State representative James Talarico beat progressive firebrand Representative Jasmine Crockett by winning most suburbs and running up a large margin among Hispanics. But old tweets and videos released since the primary show that Talarico embraced, and apparently still embraces, many of the progressive left’s most controversial shibboleths. Centrists worried that Kamala Harris’s support for transgender rights might have cost her the election should be terrified that Talarico’s statement that there are six genders will drive swing voters far away.

North Carolina provides another cautionary tale. Representative Valerie Foushee barely survived a primary challenge from progressive Nida Allam, winning by less than one point. The congresswoman had once received financial support from AIPAC and was part of an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel in 2024. But that group and its views on Israeli actions in Gaza and the Middle East have become toxic in Democratic politics. Foushee disclaimed AIPAC backing in this race and now loudly criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Her switch in time may have saved her. It is nonetheless a telling indication that she survived only by moving leftward to be closer to the progressive position.

The battle for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District is a clear indication of where the Democratic center is. Yes, 26-year-old progressive internet journalist and influencer Kat Abughazaleh lost, but she handily won in Chicago and easily bested the most moderate serious candidate, state senator Laura Fine, to finish second. The winner, Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, is an open critic of AIPAC (although he labels himself a “progressive Zionist” in the J Street mold) and is nearly as leftist as the fiery Abughazaleh.

The party avoided nominating a future member of the Squad only to elevate someone likely to become Illinois’ Ro Khanna. That’s not what Third Way and other establishment Democrats who favor “combative centrism” want to see happen in 2028.

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If anything, the primary results so far are fantastic news for California Governor Gavin Newsom. He has spent the last year triangulating Democratic progressives and centrists, showing the former he fights Trump at every opportunity while positioning himself for the latter as the sophisticated grown-up in the party room. That’s why he now either leads or is a close second to former vice president Harris in national presidential primary polls.

Centrists are also hamstrung by the fact that the most sizable moderate faction within the party electorate, black voters, tends to prefer serious black candidates even when they are more liberal than might be ideal. Harris, for example, was chosen by 59 percent of black voters in a recent Harvard/Harris poll, compared to only 15 percent for Newsom. If Harris does run, she would likely prevent a moderate white candidate from obtaining the early polling numbers they need to raise funds and remain viable into the early contests.

Candidates who want to track to the center also have to look at the fates of Democratic senators who have tried to favor the middle at the expense of the party base. Senators Kyrsten Sinema’s and Joe Manchin’s support of maintaining the filibuster rather than reforming it to pass signature party initiatives led to a collapse in support among Democrats. Neither person ran again, as it was painfully clear they had no path to re-election.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is experiencing the same thing today. He has largely voted the party line but has been vocally supportive of Trump’s actions against Iran and occasionally voted for Trump nominees. A recent poll found he’s popular with Pennsylvania independents, garnering a 48 percent job approval rating. But his ratings with Democrats have cratered: only 22 percent of Democrats approved of his performance.

Rational Democrats will see this and act accordingly. They will ensure they don’t infuriate the progressive base and hope that stylistic moderation and some carefully modulated distinctions will satisfy moderates. Anyone old enough to recall Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis’s attempt to play the same game in 1988 remembers how that turned out.

Even the rare victories of genuinely centrist Democrats like that of former Representative Melissa Bean in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District prove the point. Bean’s six-point win over progressive businessman Junaid Ahmed was enough to give her the nomination, but presidential contests award delegates proportionally by congressional district. A centrist who did as well as Bean did against Ahmed would garner only one more delegate than a progressive.

That could also easily be offset by progressive victories in seats based in more liberal and urban areas, areas that also tend to award more delegates than the ones where centrists are stronger. Indeed, Bean’s 8th district sent five delegates to the 2024 convention, while the 9th sent seven. A progressive like Abughazaleh would likely have won as many delegates for finishing second in the 9th as a centrist like Bean would win by winning the 8th.

The good news for Democrats so far is that the progressive surge evident in last year’s New York and Seattle mayoral races may have peaked. The bad news is that it often takes a “progressive lite” to hold the line. Whether that will be enough to beat a Trump Republican—particularly in more competitive states and districts—is anyone’s guess.