Dems Will Need a Third Way To Remain Relevant

Donald Trump’s job approval ratings are falling – he’s now nearly five points underwater in the RealClearPolitics polling average – and 52% of voters disapprove of the Republican Party, according to a Harvard/CAPS/Harris poll.

But the news is even worse for Democrats. The same survey found that only 40% of Americans approve of the Democratic Party.

Digging more deeply into the data only makes it worse for Democrats. The Hill newspaper just reported on a poll conducted by Unite the Party, a Democratic political action committee, which surveyed voters in 21 battleground counties across 10 swing states. They describe the party as “woke,” “weak,” and “out of touch.”

That’s precisely the view of a leading moderate Democratic think tank, Third Way, which is trying to shift the party toward the center, where it believes most voters are.

Other polling evidence supports the group’s view: 47% say the party is “too liberal,” an increase of 7% since 2020. Only 25% of U.S. voters identify as liberal (vs. 34% moderate and 37% conservative), but 49% of Democrats identify as liberal or very liberal on economic issues (vs. 28% in 2004) and 69% on social issues (vs. 29% in 2004).

At the moment, though, leftists like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the progressive organizers of the massive “Hands Off” and “No Kings” protest rallies are dominating the news.

Mamdani, a charismatic 33-year-old state assemblyman and declared Democratic Socialist, just won the Democratic mayoral primary on a platform including a freeze on rent-controlled apartments, free city buses, city-owned grocery stores, universal free childcare, tuition-free city colleges, and an increase on corporate taxes from 7.25% to 12.5%, along with a 2% tax surcharge on taxpayers making more than $1 million a year.

A Muslim, Mamdani is staunchly pro-Palestinian and has accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, apartheid, and war crimes. He also backs the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, praised Mamdani’s political skills but said “his ideas are bad and his Democratic Socialist affiliation is dangerous and is already being weaponized by the Republicans.” Other critics said his tax increases would drive businesses out of New York. And he’s been accused of being antisemitic, a charge he denies.

Sanders took a short break, but he’s resuming his “Fight the Oligarchy” tour – concentrating on red states and expecting to attract more large crowds (so far, an estimated 254,000 in 11 states) advocating a “wealth tax” and Medicare for all replacing private insurance.

 The Democrats’ activist base is definitely energized: An estimated 3-5 million attended April 5 “Hands Off” events at 1,400 locations in all 50 states, protesting the Trump administration’s mass firing of federal workers; his tariffs and inflation; and anticipated cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. “Hands Off “was organized by Indivisible, a  progressive group launched 10 years ago.

More than 5 million attended “No Kings” events in 2,100 locations on June 14, the same day Donald Trump staged his $40 million military parade on his 79th birthday, attended by 250,000 onlookers (the White House’s figure) or 100,000 according to others. (The comparatively meager crowds attending Trump’s parade can partly be attributed to a plot uncorked on TikTok to claim tickets to the event with no intention of showing up.)

Participants in “No Kings” rallies organized by Indivisible, the new 50501 movement and 200 other mainly-liberal groups protested Trump’s hyper-aggressive immigrant deportation program, his “Big Beautiful” budget bill heaping money on the rich and giving crumbs to average Americans, and his efforts to dominate all other branches of government.

(Distributional effects of Big Beautiful Bill according to CBO: Bottom 10% would lose $1,600 in the decade 2026-2036; middle income earners would see increases between $500 and $1,000; top 1% would receive 25% of tax cuts. Tax Policy Center estimates the top 20% would receive 57% of benefits.)

Third Way, formed in 2005 by former Bill Clinton staffers Matt Bennett and Jonathan Cowan, is planning to raise $50 million over five years to fund a “Moderate Power Project” to combat extremism on the left and right, advocate for centrist policies, try to win back working class voters to the Democratic Party along with other groups tempted to defect, train cadres of young people to take jobs in congressional and executive branch offices and state governments, educate politically apathetic voters via social media, and “build blue power in red states.”

Third Way is a month away from publishing a specific 2026 policy agenda, but Bennett said it will include emphasizing “opportunity” programs – rather than handouts – including expanded training for tech jobs, pressure on corporations to spread jobs “where workers live,” and massive increases in apprenticeships.

In the past, Third Way has advocated for “clean natural gas” and nuclear power, tax increases on the very rich, tax cuts for the middle class and serious efforts to control spending, plus maintenance of and improvement in Obamacare.

In 2024, it supported the bipartisan border security/immigration plan sponsored by Sens. Chris Murphy, James Lankford, and Kyrsten Sinema, which was killed by Trump to preserve immigration as a campaign issue. Last week it endorsed a similar House bill, the “Dignity Act,” sponsored by 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

Cowan recently wrote an op-ed calling for a middle ground approach to transgenderism, “the defining cultural issue of this time.”

He noted that Trump’s most effective ad in 2024 – “Kamala Harris is for they/them. Donald Trump is for you” – was based on Kamala Harris’ 2019 position that prisoners and immigration detainees should get free transgender medical care, including surgery.

Cowan recommended that Democrats adopt a stance “meeting Americans where they are today” –favoring protection of transgender persons from discrimination in jobs, housing and health care but recognizing that athletes should compete on the basis of the sex they were assigned at birth and that minors should receive gender-transitioning medical care only with the consent of their parents.

Cowan said Democrats should oppose the cruel policies of the Trump administration, which include banning transgender persons from the military, criminalizing medical care for minors even when parents consent, defunding suicide hotlines tailored to LGBT youth, and refusing to issue passports recognizing a person’s chosen gender – “in fact, trying to erase the very existence of transgender people.”

He said Democrats’ approach to transgenderism has been more generous than Republicans’ but they “must cancel the transgender language police” who insist upon using terms like “pregnant people” or making a big issue of pronouns.

Democrats need to have open discussion on the topic without fear of being ostracized for using language “that diverges from progressive groupthink or online orthodoxy,” he added.

Third Way is clear about how to criticize the Trump administration – by “separating the signal from the noise.” That is, focusing on “things that matter and can move swing voters” rather than “things that matter … to people who work in and around government but lack salience with most everyone else.”

The latter category includes Trump’s shuttering of USAID and threatening to do the same to the Department of Education, using government power to attack political opponents, firing indiscriminately and degrading the civil service, releasing J-6ers, and blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion. “All are a combination of unwise, unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional. But none resonate much with key voters … It is a painful irony that while our very democracy is at stake, a focus on ‘democracy’ (and the trashing of democratic norms) simply won’t save it,” the group says.

Third Way is just starting to identify its “signal” issues, but its principle is to concentrate on administration actions that “bite” average Americans: stoking inflation and raising prices with tariffs; compromising food safety by cutting off funding to the FDA team that “ensures formula is not poisonous to infants and that e. Coli is not found in applesauce or hamburger meat”; defunding disease prevention at the CDC and slashing medical research at NIH; allowing more self-certification by manufacturers; firing Veterans Administration crisis line workers who answer 60,000 calls a month; and gutting Medicaid and the SNAP food assistance program.

Given the public’s negative views of the “too liberal” Democratic Party, party leaders and rank and file members definitely should adopt the Third Way formula: Move to the mainstream center “where the votes are.”

But they need more than good policy positions to win the 2026 midterm elections and become a party that voters prefer over the longer run.

Younger, popular, moderate, and vigorous Democratic governors – Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Stein of North Carolina, and Wes Moore of Maryland – must start speaking out instead of leaving the field to progressives.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing so, almost certainly hoping to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. He just completed a visit to South Carolina, the first southern primary state. And he’s moving toward the center: He’s now opposed to trans athletes competing in women’s sports and he’s against giving Medicaid to undocumented immigrants.

Even in South Carolina, Newsom encountered voters reminding him what a “mess” California is, with its high taxes, homeless crisis, and people decamping to red states.

A true moderate who is speaking out – and also looks like he’s running in 2028 – is Rahm Emanuel, former Chicago Mayor, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Bill Clinton’s political director, successful House Democratic campaign chief, and former ambassador to Japan.

Emanuel has called the Democratic brand “toxic, weak and woke” and has said that to win, the party must get away from culture issues like transgender bathrooms and concentrate on crime, education, and the fact that “the American Dream has become unaffordable.”

Emanuel and Newsom are both skilled communicators, but that’s not enough. The Democratic Party needs a moderate agenda, charismatic leaders, and the ability to get its messages across. And all the moderate leaders in the party – rank and file moderates, too – need to start helping the party win the 2026 elections. Right now wouldn’t be too early.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.