As the Democratic Party grapples with losses up and down the ballot in 2024, a new report is urging Democrats to moderate their positions on identity politics and cultural issues while embracing affordability, border security and public safety ahead of competitive midterm elections expected next year.
The future of the party seemed destined for socialism when the trio of self-identified democratic socialists — New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — joined forces to rally more than 10,000 New York City voters at Forest Hills Stadium on Sunday. But with one week until Election Day, the report, “Deciding to Win,” is urging Democrats back to the center.
“To win elections, Democrats need to make the following changes. First, we need to focus more on the issues voters do not think we prioritize enough (the economy, the cost of living, health care, border security, public safety), and focus less on the issues voters think we prioritize too highly (climate change, democracy, abortion, and identity and cultural issues),” authors Simon Bazelon, Lauren Harper Pope and Liam Kerr wrote.
“Second, we need to moderate our positions on issues where our agenda is unpopular, including immigration, public safety, energy production, and some identity and cultural issues,” the trio of researchers and Democratic operatives added.
POLITICAL ANALYST SAYS DEMOCRATS ARE ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT THE ‘BIG PROBLEM’ OF WINNING BACK VOTERS FOR 2028
The Democratic Party has been without a clear leader since former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election to President Donald Trump last year.
NYC VOTERS EMBRACE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM AS AOC, SANDERS STUMP FOR MAMDANI
Ahead of the midterm elections in 2026, the New York City mayoral race has dominated the national political stage this year.
New York Democrats, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul, waited months to endorse the Democratic nominee. Republicans, meanwhile, have capitalized on such endorsements as embracing a far-left agenda, including Trump who labeled Mamdani a “communist” – a moniker he rejected.
New York City voters who attended the star-studded rally in Queens on Sunday embraced democratic socialism and told Fox News Digital that Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez represent the future of the Democratic Party.
But released the following day, the “Deciding to Win” report, first shared with Semafor, pushes Democrats back to the center. The report is based on “thousands of election results, hundreds of public polls and academic papers, dozens of case studies, and surveys of more than 500,000 voters we conducted since the 2024 election.”
According to Semafor’s reporting, elected Democrats are set to receive copies of the report as early as this week, and there will be events in Washington, D.C., and New York City to promote it.
Democratic campaign staffers are more liberal than Democratic voters and are more likely to be “on average, younger, more highly educated, more likely to be white, more likely to be female, and less likely to attend church than both Democratic voters and the overall electorate,” according to academic research by the American Political Science Review.
While the report finds that “most voters are white, most voters are non-college-educated, and most voters are over the age of 50,” the authors argue that Democrats are meanwhile pulled to the left by donors and campaign staffers.
“Research from Data for Progress shows that Democratic elites are significantly to the left of the general public, and that the gap between Democratic elites and the public is larger than the gap between Republican elites and the public,” the report states, arguing that both Democratic donors and campaign staffers push the party to the left, away from the electorate.
“To win again, Democrats need to listen more to voters and less to out-of-touch donors, detached party elites, and Democratic politicians who consistently underperform the top of the ticket,” the authors wrote.
This has created a disconnect between the Democratic forces driving the national conversation and the voters who actually turn out for elections, according to the report.
Since President Barack Obama won his re-election campaign in 2012, the authors claim that the Democratic Party has moved to the left on “essentially every issue.”
They conclude that today’s Democratic Party is more focused on climate change, democracy, abortion and identity politics than on the economy and the middle class. With that shift, they say, more voters now see the party as “out of touch.”
The authors encourage Democrats to refocus policy agendas on lowering costs and building the economy and advocate for “popular” economic policies as opposed to student loan forgiveness or Medicare-for-all. They also urge Democrats to focus less on things like climate change and abortion and more on the cost of living.
That includes moderating positions on immigration, public safety, energy production and some identity or cultural issues, while rejecting economic influence in politics.
“First, voters’ frustrations with the status quo are not the same as a desire for socialism. And second, criticizing the status quo is a complement to advocating for popular policies on the issues that matter most to the American people, not a substitute,” the authors said.
The authors acknowledge that Democrats have “much to learn” from Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders about prioritizing affordability, just as they should from Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego’s approach to border security in Arizona.
Democrats should prioritize an “unwavering focus on the economic issues that are the top priorities of working-class Americans while meeting voters where they are on issues like immigration and public safety,” according to the authors.
While pushing Democrats to the center, the authors argue that “Deciding to Win does not advocate for giving up our party’s core values or for refusing to stand up for disadvantaged groups.”
The report encourages Democrats to “be brave,” rejecting third-party demands and “embracing new media platforms and unscripted events with voters, rather than listening to consultants whose greatest fear is their candidate making a mistake.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the DNC for comment but did not immediately receive a response.