Source: Politics<\/p>\n
For Democrats, the size of their victory matters.<\/p>\n
Progressives and moderates have been sparring all cycle over who will get to claim credit if they win on Tuesday. A new POLITICO Poll<\/a> shows that the bigger the win, the more Democrats appear inclined to see it as a mandate to run more progressive candidates.<\/p>\n A smaller-than-expected victory next week would leave the party \u2014 and voters \u2014 torn over which direction to go.<\/p>\n The results reveal that the midterm election will have major implications over the next stage of the Democratic Party war over their identity \u2014 and could give progressives fresh ammunition ahead of a critical 2028 presidential race. Party insiders are closely watching contests where that infighting has been on display: From Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s battle for Michigan Senate and Troy Jackson\u2019s for Maine Senate, to Randy Villegas\u2019 House race in California and Manny Rutinel\u2019s in Colorado.<\/p>\n More than a dozen Democratic Party operatives and strategists said in interviews that both factions are already preparing<\/a> to see a blue wave as validation of its own approach. Top super PACs and campaign firms are finishing strategy memos and finalizing lineups for a slate of post-election conferences where they intend to claim their way is the party\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what they say: Victory has a thousand mothers, right?\u201d said Oliver Libby, the Democratic author behind the book \u201cStrong Floor, No Ceiling,\u201d which became a rallying cry<\/a> for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries this cycle.<\/p>\n The survey, conducted by PF Global, found Democrats are nearly evenly split over what a smaller-than-expected victory next week would mean for future elections: 37% said it would signal a need to run more progressive candidates in the next election, while 35% said it would show the party should run more moderates. Another 28% said they didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Those divisions largely fall along ideological lines. Among self-identified progressives, 52% said a smaller-than-expected victory would show that Democrats should run more progressive candidates. Meanwhile, a 45% plurality of self-identified moderates said that the same result would be evidence that the party should nominate more moderates, while just 28% percent said to run more progressives.<\/p>\n But if Democrats sweep key races \u2014 presented in the survey as a \u201clarge victory\u201d \u2014 both progressives and moderates move toward running more progressive candidates in the next election. A majority of self-identified progressives \u2014 61% \u2014 said it would show that the party should run more progressive candidates, while 35% of self-identified moderates agreed (compared with the 28% who said this for a smaller margin of victory).<\/p>\n A majority of Democratic midterm voters, including majorities of both self-identified progressives and moderates, also said a large victory would mean the party has a winning strategy for the 2028 presidential election, according to the poll.<\/p>\n “If Democrats had half a brain cell, they would look for the things that those two movements have in common,\u201d said Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democratic strategist who has advised prominent candidates in both camps. \u201cWhoever can combine these two things is who’s going to end up being somebody who is going to be a stalwart in \u201828.”<\/p>\n Progressives are eager for Tuesday\u2019s results to bolster their argument that the party should move further to the left and that their candidates can win in competitive general elections. They\u2019ve spent years feeling like they were being discounted by the party\u2019s establishment wing, which was convinced that only more moderate candidates could cut into Trump\u2019s coalition.<\/p>\n Progressives have cast a slate of battleground House and Senate races where their candidates felled more moderate primary rivals as major proof points \u2014 none more so than El-Sayed in purple Michigan\u2019s marquee Senate race. A victory there, they say, could help springboard some of their biggest stars, like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), for presidential bids. Both representatives and a slate of other progressive surrogates up through Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have hit the trail to help.<\/p>\n \u201cOur North Star in 2026 is to prove the concept that bold, shake up the system economic fighters can win anywhere, including purple and red areas, as a prelude to the presidential election in 2028,\u201d said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. \u201cWe think we will have plenty to work with after the election. For us, Abdul is Exhibit A.\u201d<\/p>\n PCCC is drafting a memo touting what it predicts as \u201ctwo common themes in election winners: Outsiders and economic fighters who challenge corporate power,\u201d according to a draft viewed by POLITICO.<\/p>\n Moderates, meanwhile, are poised to point to results as evidence that building broad coalitions can help Democrats compete in Republican strongholds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe interpretation game is already under way,\u201d said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist think-tank Third Way, which has been conducting advertising analysis and polling the electorate, with plans to release its findings after Election Day. \u201c[Progressives] are going to cherry pick the couple of races that they win, and they are going to say, therefore \u2026 everybody should go to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n A memo<\/a> from The Bench \u2014 a Democratic organization that supports candidates with real-world experience, such as teachers, nurses or veterans \u2014 touts recruits like James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas as evidence of the strength of its approach working. Public polling shows Talarico and Hamilton in a competitive position in once-solid safe red states.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile much of the Democratic establishment was busy studying how to talk to working people, our answer was simpler: Run them,\u201d the memo released this week reads.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw Democrats, a lot of people in the 2020 primary, adopt positions that were just electoral poison,\u201d said Democratic strategist Lis Smith, an architect of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign who is a senior adviser to The Bench and works with The Bench\u2019s sister organization, Majority Democrats. \u201cYou had Democrats say decriminalize border crossing, defund the police, and things like that. And we just can’t go back there as a party. We’re not going to be a majority party if we go down that road again.\u201d<\/p>\n