A couple of days ago, I heard Felix Frisch discuss Promise to America with Eli Honig on SiriusXM. I came away thinking that we had found an organization that belongs on CIVPAC’s list of centrist resources.
Promise to America is an effort to give moderate Democrats something they have often lacked: a simple, affirmative statement of what they believe. It was developed by a group of young political organizers working with Democratic Representatives Tom Suozzi of New York and Adam Gray of California—the only two Democrats who captured Republican-held House districts won by Donald Trump in 2024.
The organization is directed by Felix Frisch, the 20-year-old son of former Colorado congressional candidate Adam Frisch. Felix worked on his father’s two campaigns and says he drove more than 50,000 miles through western and southern Colorado. That experience appears to have taught him something national political organizations sometimes forget: candidates must listen to the voters they need to persuade, not merely repeat the views of the activists.
Promise to America asks Democratic candidates and elected officials to embrace six broad principles:
Growth, competition and broadly shared prosperity
Safety, security and human dignity
Fiscal discipline
Government that works
Free speech, respect and common purpose
Confident patriotism and national renewal
The pledge summarizes those principles in unusually direct language:
“We are capitalist, not socialist.”
“We want safety, not lawlessness.”
“We are responsible, not reckless.”
“We believe government should solve problems, not create them.”
“We are mainstream, not extreme.”
“We are proud, not ashamed of America.”
CIVPAC agrees with all six statements.
That does not mean that slogans are a substitute for policy. Saying that government should be fiscally responsible is easier than identifying which programs should be reduced, which taxes should be increased or which promises should be reconsidered. Supporting secure borders does not by itself tell us what a workable immigration system would look like. Supporting capitalism does not relieve government of the responsibility to preserve competition, protect opportunity and address genuine market failures.
But political organizations need both policies and an identity. Voters want to know not only what a candidate proposes to do, but also what kind of person—or party—they are being asked to trust.
Promise to America offers a recognizable identity: economically pragmatic, socially tolerant, patriotic, serious about public safety, supportive of effective government and willing to persuade people who do not already agree.
That is a useful answer to the impression that Democrats must choose between offering no clear governing philosophy and adopting the philosophy of the democratic socialist left.
The pledge’s emphasis on persuasion may be especially important. American elections are not won by assembling the purest possible collection of beliefs. They are won by building coalitions. That requires candidates to speak respectfully to voters who may disagree with them on abortion, guns, immigration, taxes, policing, climate policy or cultural questions.
A political party that treats disagreement as evidence of moral failure will steadily shrink the number of people it can represent.
The Democratic Party needs people who understand that defeating MAGA politics requires winning voters outside safely Democratic cities and districts. The party cannot build a durable national majority by telling culturally moderate, working-class, rural and suburban voters that they must accept every position favored by the progressive left.
Centrists should not limit themselves to warning Democrats about what they must reject. They need to describe what they are for.
Promise to America has made a promising start.
Its principles do not constitute a complete governing program, but they describe a political temperament that is badly needed: confident without being arrogant, patriotic without being uncritical, market-oriented without being indifferent, and moderate without being timid.
We are therefore adding Promise to America to CIVPAC’s list of centrist organizations. We hope its candidates and supporters will move beyond a pledge to develop specific, credible policies. It took CIVPAC years to develop our current portfolio of centrist public policies. Promise to America has existed for only a few weeks.
We also hope Democratic leaders will listen to people such as Tom Suozzi and Adam Gray, who have demonstrated that they can win voters in places where elections are genuinely contested.
And we will be watching Felix Frisch. It is encouraging to hear a young political leader speak about persuasion, pluralism and coalition-building with a maturity that is often missing from American politics.
CIVPAC has endorsed Charlie Hatcher in the Republican primary and Chaz Molder in the Democratic primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.
Endorsing candidates in both parties may seem unusual, but it reflects the purpose of an independent centrist organization. We do not begin by choosing a party and then searching for reasons to support its nominee. We evaluate the candidates actually running and ask which candidate in each primary offers voters the strongest combination of competence, responsible government and appeal beyond the party’s most committed base.
In the Republican primary, that candidate is Charlie Hatcher.
Hatcher is a farmer, veterinarian, business owner and former Tennessee commissioner of agriculture. He offers Republican voters a more serious and accomplished alternative to incumbent Representative Andy Ogles, whose congressional career has been characterized too often by ideological performance, inflammatory rhetoric and the pursuit of national attention.
Hatcher would also be the more appealing Republican candidate in the general election. His executive experience, agricultural background and emphasis on competent government give him a better chance of reaching voters who may share conservative instincts but are weary of political theater.
In the Democratic primary, CIVPAC endorses Chaz Molder.
Molder has twice been elected mayor of Columbia in heavily Republican Maury County. His record includes balanced budgets, investments in public safety and infrastructure, and no increase in the city’s property-tax rate. Whatever disagreements CIVPAC may have with individual elements of his platform, he has demonstrated an ability to govern and to earn support beyond the Democratic base.
That experience distinguishes him from the rest of the Democratic field. Democrats hoping to compete in Tennessee’s 5th District need more than a candidate who can mobilize reliable Democratic voters. They need someone capable of persuading independents and at least some Republicans. Molder has already shown that he can do that.
These endorsements are limited to the party primaries. CIVPAC will evaluate the general-election nominees after the primaries are complete.
For now, our message to voters in both parties is straightforward.
Republicans who want a more responsible representative and a stronger general-election nominee should choose Charlie Hatcher.
Democrats who want an experienced candidate with the best chance of building a broader coalition should choose Chaz Molder.
A healthier political system requires both parties to nominate candidates capable of governing—and capable of speaking to people who do not already agree with them.
CIVPAC has endorsed two Democratic congressional candidates in Michigan: Bridget Brink in the 7th Congressional District and Callie Barr in the 1st Congressional District.
The districts are different, and neither candidate should be treated as a generic national Democrat. Both bring experience particularly relevant to the people they seek to represent.
Bridget Brink — Michigan’s 7th District
Bridget Brink is a career diplomat and former United States ambassador to Ukraine. She served under presidents of both parties and represented the United States in Kyiv during Russia’s invasion. She resigned from government after concluding that the Trump administration was placing pressure on Ukraine while accommodating Russia.
Brink brings seriousness, integrity and extensive national-security experience to a competitive central Michigan district. At a time when American alliances and democratic values are under pressure, Congress needs members who understand both the human consequences of aggression and the strategic importance of resisting it.
Her career also demonstrates that public service need not begin with partisan ambition. She spent decades representing the United States before seeking elective office.
Callie Barr is a military spouse, veteran advocate, teacher and attorney seeking to represent northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Her campaign emphasizes affordability, health care, housing, energy costs and the practical needs of families who often feel overlooked by Washington.
Barr’s understanding of military families is particularly relevant in a region with a strong tradition of service. She also offers Democrats an opportunity to compete in a difficult district with a candidate whose biography and priorities are grounded in the community rather than in national ideological politics.
An endorsement is not merely a prediction about who is most likely to win. Sometimes it is also a statement that a serious candidate is making the right kind of argument in a place where that argument needs to be heard.
Brink and Barr represent two important forms of public service: international leadership in defense of American interests and practical advocacy for families at home. CIVPAC is pleased to endorse both.
CIVPAC has endorsed former Representative Elaine Luria in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
Luria brings an unusual combination of military experience, legislative experience and demonstrated commitment to constitutional government. Before entering Congress, she served for 20 years as a Navy officer. In the House, she developed a reputation for seriousness on national security and later served on the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. She is now seeking to reclaim the district she represented from 2019 through 2022.
CIVPAC does not expect to agree with Luria on every issue. We would, of course, prefer a true centrist, but she represents the kind of center-left leadership the country needs: pragmatic, experienced, internationally engaged and willing to place constitutional responsibility ahead of immediate political convenience.
Virginia’s 2nd District includes a large military and veteran population and deserves a representative who understands both national defense and the obligations that accompany public power. Elaine Luria has demonstrated that understanding.
CIVPAC’s endorsements are not offered as kingmaking exercises. We recognize that we do not have that kind of influence. They are public markers: statements about the kind of politics we believe deserves support and the kind of politics we believe should be resisted.
CIVPAC has endorsed three Democratic members of Congress in Washington state: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Adam Smith and Marilyn Strickland.
They represent different districts and different styles of leadership, but all three demonstrate that Democratic politics need not be dominated by its most ideological voices.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — Washington’s 3rd District
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez represents a politically difficult district in southwest Washington. A small-business owner with roots in the skilled trades, she has developed a reputation for independence, practical problem-solving and a willingness to depart from her party when she believes her district requires it. She won a Republican-leaning district in 2022 and expanded her margin in 2024.
CIVPAC does not endorse every departure from party leadership merely because it is independent. We endorse Gluesenkamp Perez because her independence generally reflects the interests of the people she represents.
Adam Smith is an experienced legislator and one of the Democratic Party’s most knowledgeable voices on national security. He has represented Washington in Congress since 1997 and currently serves as the leading Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Smith combines a broadly center-left domestic outlook with a realistic understanding of alliances, military power and America’s international responsibilities. At a time when parts of both parties are tempted by isolationism or ideological simplification, that experience matters.
Marilyn Strickland brings executive experience, practical judgment and close attention to the military families, veterans, workers and businesses of Washington’s South Sound. She is seeking a fourth term in Congress.
Strickland is a pragmatic Democrat who understands that public programs must deliver visible results. Her attention to infrastructure, economic opportunity and the quality of life of servicemembers and their families makes her a strong fit for her district.
These three endorsements do not suggest that the candidates are identical or that CIVPAC approves every vote they cast. They reflect our belief that the Democratic Party and the country need experienced national-security voices, pragmatic representatives of competitive districts and legislators focused on making government work.
CIVPAC does not favor Democratic control of Congress or Republican control of Congress in the abstract.
Our concern is institutional balance.
The Constitution assumes that Congress will defend its institutional role against the executive. In practice, party loyalty often overwhelms institutional responsibility. Members of Congress too often behave less like members of a separate branch of government and more like members of the president’s party team.
Divided government is not ideal. It is a second-best safeguard. If Congress will not check a president because it is Congress, perhaps an opposition-party Congress will check a president because it is the opposition party.
That is not a perfect solution. Divided government can produce obstruction, gridlock, posturing, and crisis. But it may still be safer than unified partisan control when party loyalty is too strong and institutional restraint is too weak.
In 2026, this principle may lead CIVPAC to favor some Democratic candidates as a check on this Republican executive. That should not be mistaken for a general endorsement of Democratic control of Congress.
In a different cycle, if Democrats held the White House — especially under a DSA-aligned or far-left president — the same principle could lead CIVPAC to favor Republican control of Congress, if Republicans nominate candidates fit to serve as a constitutional check.
Our preference is not partisan control. Our preference is constitutional balance, institutional restraint, and resistance to one-party overreach.
The more hopeful answer is that one of the two major parties might become moderate enough, responsible enough, and institutionally serious enough to be trusted with unified power. If that happened, divided government would be less necessary. But neither party has yet earned that level of trust.
This connects directly to CIVPAC’s idea of a true win-everywhere strategy.
Winning everywhere means nominating candidates who can actually represent the voters in the places they hope to serve. It means being broad enough, serious enough, and trusted enough to compete where the party’s national brand is weak. It also means having a national brand that does not make that impossible.
Too often, both parties say they want to win everywhere while behaving as if every district should be represented by the same national ideological brand.
A party captured by its ideological base cannot really win everywhere. It can win safe seats. It can hope for favorable waves. But it cannot rebuild trust in places where voters fear that unified party control would become ideological overreach.
A true win-everywhere strategy requires rejecting extreme ideological litmus tests, nominating candidates suited to their districts, respecting constitutional limits, and showing voters that winning power would not become permission for factional domination.
Candidate selection matters, even if success or failure of the party is inevitable in that state or district.
When Democratic primary voters choose practical center-left candidates over far-left or DSA-aligned alternatives, they make the Democratic Party more governable and more trustworthy. When Republican primary voters choose practical center-right candidates over MAGA, election-denying, or authoritarian-populist alternatives, they do the same for the Republican Party.
The center is not asking the two parties to become identical. Disagreement within constitutional boundaries is healthy. But there is a difference between ordinary policy disagreement and a politics that treats institutions as obstacles, opponents as enemies, and victory as permission to dominate.
Democracy is not stable merely because elections are held. It also requires parties that can be trusted with power, leaders who respect limits, and voters who reward seriousness over performance.
CIVPAC’s position is therefore straightforward: divided government may be necessary when neither party has earned full trust. The better long-term answer is for at least one party — and ideally both — to become moderate, responsible, and institutionally serious enough to be trusted with power.
The first party to learn that lesson may not merely win more elections.
It may deserve to govern.
Until then, please remember that even if your side wins by substantial majority, you do not have a mandate to pursue your wildest dreams. You have an opportunity to demonstrate that you can be trusted with power.
Democrats can win everywhere without accepting everyone who can win somewhere.
A bigger political tent can welcome many people, but only if it is firmly anchored by shared democratic principles.
I am not a Democrat. CIVPAC is not a Democratic organization. We support Democrats, Republicans, and independents when we think they represent a more responsible, centrist, democratic, and politically realistic alternative.
So any advice I offer Democrats is, by definition, unsolicited. But the Democratic Party is one of the two major governing parties in the United States. Its internal arguments matter even to those of us who do not belong to it.
Two Ideas in Tension
Right now, Democrats seem caught between two ideas that are both partly right.
The first is the “win everywhere” idea. I have argued before that both parties should try to compete beyond their comfort zones. A serious national party should not write off whole regions, classes, religions, or cultures. Democrats should want candidates who can compete in cities, suburbs, small towns, working-class communities, and rural areas. They will not all sound alike, and they should not all sound alike.
A party that wants to govern the whole country should try to understand the whole country.
The second idea is James Carville’s warning about the Democratic Socialists of America and the far-left edge of the Democratic coalition. Carville has argued that Democrats need to consider something close to a schism with some DSA-aligned candidates. His point is blunt but not foolish: if candidates who reject core assumptions of liberal democracy, pluralism, public safety, capitalism, or America’s basic alliances run under the Democratic label, Republicans will use those candidates to define the entire party.
That is not paranoia. That is politics.
But there is an obvious tension. How can Democrats “win everywhere” if they are also drawing sharper boundaries around who belongs in the party?
The answer is that “win everywhere” does not mean “accept everyone who can win somewhere.”
A Big Tent Still Needs a Floor
A democratic political party has to be broad. It has to include people who disagree on taxes, health care, immigration, policing, climate, foreign policy, and cultural issues. It has to make room for candidates who fit their communities. A Democrat running in rural Georgia should not have to sound like a progressive activist from Brooklyn. A Democrat running in Brooklyn should not have to sound like a rural Georgia moderate.
Local variation is not the problem. It is the point.
But a party also needs a floor. It needs some basic commitments that define what the party is and what it is not. For Democrats, that floor should include liberal democracy, constitutional government, pluralism, public safety, a regulated market economy, individual rights, and a foreign policy that does not treat America’s democratic allies as morally indistinguishable from its adversaries.
That still leaves room for a wide range of Democrats. It leaves room for progressives, moderates, labor liberals, suburban pragmatists, Black church Democrats, national-security Democrats, and former Republicans who broke with Trump over democracy and the rule of law.
But it does not require Democrats to treat every anti-capitalist, anti-police, anti-Israel, anti-party, or anti-pluralist candidate as merely one more flavor in the big tent.
That is the mistake Carville is reacting against.
The Fetterman Test
I thought about this while rereading my earlier post, “A Centrist on the Road.” On that trip, I spoke with a Democratic Party activist from a northeastern state. She described herself as left wing but not far left wing. We agreed that Democrats needed to reach voters outside their normal constituencies. But she also reportedly wrote Senator John Fetterman urging him to leave the Democratic Party.
That struck me then, and strikes me even more now, as a perfect illustration of the problem.
It is easy to say the party should broaden its coalition. It is harder to accept the actual people who make a broader coalition possible.
A party cannot become more competitive in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, or Maine if it treats every culturally heterodox Democrat as a betrayal. If Democrats want to win outside safe blue territory, they need candidates who sound plausible outside safe blue territory.
The Fantasy of Purification
There is also a darker suspicion, held in some quarters, that some DSA and far-left Democrats do not mind seeing moderate Democrats lose in competitive districts. Moderate losses weaken the party’s center of gravity. They make it easier for ideological activists to argue that the old coalition has failed and that the party must be remade in their image.
The fantasy seems to be that if the Democratic Party becomes uniformly left wing enough, millions of hidden voters will suddenly emerge from the woodwork and propel it to national power. That theory has always struck me as closer to faith than analysis. It ignores the voters who actually decide competitive elections. It also treats losing winnable seats as an acceptable price for ideological purification.
That is not “win everywhere.” That is lose strategically and call it progress.
Disagreement Is Not Disqualification
The right answer is not to purge the left. Nor is it to purge the center. The right answer is to distinguish between disagreement and disqualification.
Disagreement is normal coalition politics. A Democrat who is more cautious on spending, more supportive of policing, more hawkish on foreign policy, or more skeptical of progressive cultural language should not be pushed out of the party. Such candidates may be exactly what Democrats need in places where they currently lose.
Disqualification is different. A candidate who rejects liberal democracy, excuses political violence, denies basic pluralism, or treats the Democratic Party merely as a ballot line to be captured is not simply a different kind of Democrat. That candidate is challenging the party’s identity.
So the lesson is simple:
Do not purge the center in the name of ideological purity.
Do not absorb the anti-liberal left in the name of coalition unity.
That is not hypocrisy. It is coalition discipline.
The Same Advice Applies to Republicans
I would offer Republicans the same unsolicited advice. There are elements on the far right that seem to have found a home in the Republican Party — indeed, may have seized control of much of it — and they may have permanently damaged the Republican brand. But that is a subject for another post.
The Goal Is a Stronger Tent
The broader principle applies to both parties. A healthy party should be wide enough to hold real disagreement and strong enough not to collapse under the weight of people who do not believe in the core principles of the coalition itself.
These endorsements should not be read as a general-election endorsement of the Democratic Party. CIVPAC includes members with different views about which party should control Congress. But we are united in believing that, when Democratic primary voters have a choice between practical center-left candidates and far-left or DSA-aligned candidates, the practical center-left candidate is usually more consistent with CIVPAC’s principles.
The three races are different. Missouri’s 1st District is a safe Democratic district, where the central question is what kind of Democrat should represent the district. Wisconsin’s 3rd District is a competitive, Republican-held district, where Democratic primary voters should give serious weight to breadth of appeal and practical governing judgment. New Hampshire’s 1st District is a competitive open seat in a politically independent state, where the Democratic nominee will need to appeal beyond the activist base.
In each race, CIVPAC believes Democratic primary voters have a better center-left alternative to far-left or DSA-aligned politics.
CIVPAC endorses Wesley Bell, Rebecca Cooke, and Stefany Shaheen in their respective Democratic primaries.
When CIVPAC began, we expected much of our work to involve supporting center-left and center-right candidates in primaries, with the hope of nudging both parties toward the political center. That task has changed. Increasingly, CIVPAC finds itself supporting conventional left-wing or right-wing candidates against more extreme alternatives that, not long ago, would have seemed unlikely to gain serious traction in American politics.
When this effort began, through CIVPAC’s predecessor organization, the New Independent Party, the national political world was still recognizable. The 2012 presidential race was Mitt Romney against Barack Obama. CIVPAC would have had criticisms of both candidates, but both were serious, constitutional, mainstream figures. The distance between that world and today’s politics explains why CIVPAC’s task has changed.
Espaillat is not a centrist Democrat. He is a mainstream progressive Democrat with a reliable party-line voting record. But the question in NY-13 is not whether voters should choose a centrist over a progressive. The question is whether Democratic primary voters should replace an experienced incumbent with Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic-socialist challenger backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
That race is part of a larger pattern. Mamdani has endorsed three congressional candidates in New York: Avila Chevalier in NY-13, Brad Lander in NY-10, and Claire Valdez in NY-7. CIVPAC is not making endorsements in all three races at this time. But the slate matters because it has become a national signal about the direction of the Democratic Party in its most heavily Democratic urban districts.
Deep-blue primaries are not politically isolated. New York City helps shape the Democratic Party’s national brand. When candidates running on democratic-socialist, movement-left politics become the face of the party in highly visible urban districts, voters outside New York notice. So do Republican media and campaign strategists.
If Democrats believe Mamdani’s strategy and the candidates he is backing are likely to succeed nationally, they should ask why Fox News is so eager to make that strategy visible to voters outside New York City.
CIVPAC does not object to new candidates merely because they are new. Parties need competition, new voices, and serious challenges to complacency. Nor does CIVPAC believe incumbents are entitled to renomination. But not every insurgency is an improvement.
This is one of those situations. The work now feels less like gently nudging the parties toward the center than trying to keep the planets from being flung out of the solar system.
Our concern is the road to “Blue MAGA.” We do not mean that left-wing populism and Trumpism are identical. They are not. But both can reward tribal certainty, ideological escalation, contempt for persuasion, and the belief that political intensity is a substitute for broad public appeal.
In NY-13, CIVPAC believes the better choice is clear. Representative Espaillat is not a CIVPAC ideal candidate, but he offers experience, institutional knowledge, and continuity. Replacing him with a movement-left challenger would strengthen the very tendency CIVPAC has warned about: the temptation to make deep-blue urban politics the face of the national Democratic Party.
That is bad politics for Democrats and bad politics for the country.
CIVPAC therefore endorses Representative Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House in New York’s 13th Congressional District.
AI-generated symbolic image of a blue road roller paving the road to “Blue MAGA.”
Democrats have spent years warning, correctly, that Trumpism has damaged American politics. But one lesson they should not take from Trumpism is that politics is only about mobilizing the most emotionally committed members of the base.
That way lies what some have called “Blue MAGA.”
By “Blue MAGA,” we do not mean that left-wing populism is identical to Trumpism. It is not. Nor do we mean that Democrats should reject working-class appeal, fresh candidates, economic populism, or a willingness to fight. Democrats may need more of some of those things.
By “Blue MAGA,” we mean the temptation to copy some of MAGA’s worst political habits: tribal loyalty, contempt for persuasion, and the belief that emotional intensity is a substitute for broad public appeal. We realize that this term can be used in a variety of ways. We think, right now, it most accurately applies to the illiberal-left, with its fondness for analysis by slogan and its intolerance for anyone, even those within the same party, who holds opposing views.
Democrats face this temptation now. After years of Trump, many Democratic primary voters understandably want candidates who sound angry, uncompromising, and morally certain. That may feel satisfying. It may even win some blue districts and blue cities. But it is a poor strategy for winning red, pink, and purple places where Democrats need converts, independents, moderates, suburban voters, disaffected Republicans, and people who are tired of politics as permanent combat.
Georgia offered a useful test.
Geoff Duncan was not a conventional Democrat. That was the point. He was a former Republican lieutenant governor who broke with Trump over election integrity and paid a political price inside his own party. Democrats did not need to agree with Duncan on every issue to recognize the strategic value of his candidacy. If the defense of democracy is as important as Democrats say it is, then a pro-democracy former Republican should have been treated as an asset, not an intruder.
Instead, Democrats chose a more conventional path. Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Democratic nomination for governor without a runoff. She is a well-known Democrat and a serious political figure. But her nomination also raises the familiar question: are Democrats trying to build a broader governing coalition, or are they choosing candidates who make the base feel more comfortable? The problem is not that Bottoms is unserious. The problem is that Duncan offered a different kind of coalition opportunity.
This is not just a Georgia problem. It is a national problem for Democrats in red and purple territory. The party cannot say it wants to win everywhere while rejecting candidates who might appeal to people who do not already think like Democratic primary voters.
The point is not that every former Republican should be welcomed uncritically. Parties need standards. Candidates who switch parties for convenience or ambition should be examined carefully. But Duncan’s break with Trump was not a minor branding choice. It went to the central institutional question of the last several years: whether elected officials would defend election integrity when pressured by their own side.
If Democrats cannot make room for that, they should stop pretending that defending democracy is a coalition project.
The road to “Blue MAGA” is paved by the belief that the other side’s extremism justifies our side’s extremism. It is paved by the assumption that persuasion is weakness, that moderation is betrayal, and that candidates should be judged first by whether they make activists feel seen.
That road may produce candidates who sound good in a primary and lose races that were winnable. It may also produce candidates who win in heavily Democratic places but govern in ways that drive away the voters needed to build durable majorities nationally.
This does not mean Democrats should reject efforts to recruit new candidates. They should do the opposite. A stale bench, safe résumés, and candidates who speak only to existing Democratic primary voters will not solve the party’s problem. Candidate recruitment matters.
But “new blood” is not automatically the same thing as better blood. There is a difference between recruiting candidates who can broaden the party’s appeal and recruiting candidates who simply give activists a more satisfying fight. Democrats need candidates who can win voters they do not already have, not candidates who merely express the frustrations of voters they already do.
Groups trying to build a stronger Democratic bench may be doing important work. Some of that work points in the right direction. Democrats need candidates with compelling stories, state and district ties, practical experience, and the ability to speak beyond the party’s current coalition. But the test should not be novelty alone. The question is whether they expand the party’s reach or merely intensify its internal mood.
There are promising models.
Democrats should be looking for more candidates in the mold of Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Daniel Lurie in San Francisco, and, in Georgia, the opportunity Geoff Duncan represented. These are not identical figures, and they come from different political environments. But they share something important: they try to solve problems in a way that reaches beyond the most ideological voters in their own coalition.
Cooper showed that a Democrat could win statewide in a Republican-leaning state by projecting steadiness, moderation, and practical concern for schools, health care, and economic development. Shapiro has shown a similar ability in Pennsylvania, combining mainstream Democratic commitments with a governing style that does not seem designed primarily for activist approval. Lurie offers a different but related lesson from a deeply Democratic city: even in blue places, voters may be hungry for competence, public order, housing reform, economic recovery, and a government that works.
That is the kind of new blood Democrats should want. Not candidates who merely intensify the party’s internal mood, but candidates who expand its reach.
There are also warning signs that the search for new faces is veering off course.
Kara Eastman defeated a more moderate Democrat in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District and then lost the general election twice, including in 2020 when Joe Biden carried the district’s electoral vote. Randy Bryce became a national progressive celebrity as “Iron Stache,” raised money, won attention, and still failed to turn Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District blue. Paula Jean Swearengin offered a compelling Appalachian populist story in West Virginia, won the Democratic Senate nomination, and lost by more than 40 points.
These examples do not prove that every moderate would have won. They do show that biography, anger, online enthusiasm, and populist rhetoric are not substitutes for persuading the voters who actually decide red and purple races.
Graham Platner points to a current version of the same risk. His outsider profile, veteran biography, rural appeal, and anti-establishment message are exactly why some Democrats find him exciting. But that is also why his candidacy is a useful test. Populist energy, outsider branding, and intense primary enthusiasm may not survive contact with a general electorate.
A candidate like Zohran Mamdani may be viable in New York City. That does not mean the same style travels well to Maine, Georgia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or other places Democrats must compete if they want governing majorities. CIVPAC does not argue that left populists can never win anywhere. We argue that Democrats are making a mistake if they treat deep-blue or idiosyncratic-city success as a model for red and purple territory.
The recent mayoral results in New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco are worth taking seriously because they say something about the Democratic brand when general-election constraint is weak. In places where the real contest is often the Democratic primary, voters and activists can reveal what kind of politics they prefer when they do not have to worry very much about Republican opposition.
New York and D.C. point in one direction. Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City and Janeese Lewis George’s victory in the D.C. mayoral primary suggest that left-populist politics has real strength in some of the party’s most visible urban centers. That matters nationally because New York and Washington are not just local governments. They are symbols. They help define what many voters elsewhere think Democrats are becoming.
San Francisco points in a different direction. Daniel Lurie’s victory did not make San Francisco conservative. It remains one of the most liberal cities in America. But it did suggest that even deeply liberal voters can become impatient with public disorder, visible dysfunction, housing paralysis, downtown weakness, and a city government that does not seem able to execute. In San Francisco, pragmatic competence became the change candidate. That is a brand image that could have national appeal.
That contrast is important. The problem is not that Democrats should never nominate left-populists in cities where left-populists can win. The problem is treating those victories as a national model. A style of politics that can win New York City or Washington, D.C. may still damage the Democratic brand in Maine, Georgia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or other places where Democrats need voters who do not already identify with the party’s most progressive urban wing.
This is another reason candidate recruitment matters. Deep-blue cities can become laboratories for policy innovation, but they can also become laboratories for national brand damage. When Democrats are unconstrained by serious general-election competition, they should ask not only what their local primary electorate wants, but what their choices tell the rest of the country about the party they are building.
Progressives sometimes make a mirror-image argument: that centrist Democrats in red or purple states damage the national Democratic brand by making the party look cautious, compromised, or insufficiently committed to progressive change. That argument should not be dismissed out of hand. Party brands are real, and candidates in one state can affect how voters see the party elsewhere. But a national party is not a boutique ideological label. It is a coalition built to govern a large, diverse country. A party that cannot tolerate candidates who fit West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Maine, or Pennsylvania may preserve a cleaner brand, but it will have fewer seats, less power, and less ability to enact anything at all.
Joe Manchin offers a related lesson from the other direction. Manchin was not a model national Democrat, and many Democrats understandably found him infuriating given their policy preferences. He protected the filibuster, resisted major parts of President Biden’s domestic agenda, defended fossil-fuel interests important to West Virginia, and often used his leverage in ways that frustrated Democratic leaders.
CIVPAC does not share every Manchin position. But the strategic fact remains: he could win a Senate seat in West Virginia as a Democrat. A party that can hold a Senate seat in West Virginia through a moderate Democrat is stronger than a party that treats such figures as embarrassments and then watches the seat become unwinnable.
That lesson applies beyond Manchin. A party serious about building a durable governing coalition cannot demand that every candidate in every state sound like the median activist in a national primary. It has to tolerate members who fit their states, represent different electorates, and sometimes frustrate national party priorities.
That is what coalition politics means.
CIVPAC’s view is different from both partisan purity and performative moderation. Parties should nominate candidates who can govern effectively and appeal beyond their own faction. That sometimes means choosing a Democrat. Sometimes it means choosing a Republican. In rare cases, like Angus King of Maine, it might mean supporting an independent with a plausible path to success.
It is fine to lose after making the strongest possible case to the voters. It is something else to lose after rejecting the better candidate because the better candidate did not flatter the party’s internal mood.
When that happens, the answer to the party that loses the general election is simple: you had a better choice. You chose not to take it.
