The Democratic Party Is Divided (But Not How You Think)

This week, The New York Times published a poll exploring which direction Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want the party to take. But if you’re looking for answers about where the party is heading, you won’t find many. 

Asked if the next Democratic presidential candidate needs to “move the party to the center” or “to the left in order to win,” 52 percent of respondents picked the center, and just 25 percent took the left. (Another 18 percent didn’t think the party needed to be moved.) At the same time, a 49 percent plurality has a “favorable” opinion of socialism, with a mere 22 percent holding an “unfavorable” view.  

Questions about issues elicited more varied responses. A leftward tide was clear in health care, with 50 percent supporting it versus just 25 percent opting for the center. Conversely, 49 percent want a centrist tack on crime, with only 19 percent preferring a turn left. On “transgender issues,” the poll saw a three-way split: 36 percent for the center, 30 percent for the left, and another 30 percent saying the party is fine where it is. On “economic issues,” nearly equal numbers of Democrats push center and left. 

The crosstabs in the Times survey do not reveal huge ideological differences between demographic groups, despite tropes about lefty youth and old-school liberal Gen Xers and Boomers. Only a 14-point difference separates the youngest and oldest voters on their favorability toward socialism. Even regarding Israel, where there is, in fact, a big generational divide on the question “do you think that Democrats have been too supportive of Israel” (63 percent of Democrats under 30 and 35 percent of seniors say yes), large majorities of Democrats in all age groups oppose “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” (Though I suspect if the poll drilled down and asked opinions about cutting off all aid versus reducing or maintaining current levels of aid, we would see more intra-party division.) 

The labels “center” and “left” mean different things to different people, so we can’t translate these findings into specific policy prescriptions, even if the numbers all pointed in one ideological direction, which they don’t.  

Democrats, often unsettled and anxious, but perhaps especially now, seem eager for evidence to help settle their intra-party squabbles. Obsession over what is in the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 elections prompted yesterday’s anticlimactic, apologetic release of what was an unfinished draft that apparently was so poorly researched and written that DNC Chair Ken Martin didn’t bother trying to salvage it.  

The autopsy flop is leading some to question whether Martin should go. I hold no opinion, but I believe it’s unrealistic to expect a single report to provide definitive answers to what went wrong in 2024 and how to fix it going forward, which puts Martin in an impossible position.  

Besides, whatever conclusions emerged from any autopsy report would be rejected by those who didn’t previously agree with them. Party operatives, progressive activists, midterm candidates, and presidential hopefuls of all ideological stripes already have their theories of the case and are trying to put them into practice.  

And don’t assume that all progressives are strictly ideological and all moderates are soullessly calculating. The “Affordability Agenda” proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus last month includes a “GAS people can afford” plank, in which a windfall-profits tax on oil companies would finance rebates to consumers. That’s a big shift from six years ago, when the “Green New Deal” aimed to produce 100 percent of America’s energy from renewable sources within 10 years. Back then, some held up the plan as a progressive litmus test of one’s sincerity in saving the planet from an existential crisis. 

Similarly, Graham Platner, the anti-establishment U.S. Senate candidate from Maine who has captivated many progressives, has issued an energy policy paper that does not even mention climate change. Instead, it lays out a vision “to end Big Oil’s stranglehold on our energy policy, to slash prices for consumers, and to build the energy of the future.” He incorporates the windfall-profits tax and goes a step farther by eliminating the gas tax to make fossil fuel fill-ups cheaper.  

On the America, Actually podcast, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Cesar tacitly acknowledged that the progressive approach on climate caused political problems and needed to refocus on affordability. “The moment that Republicans tried to make it seem that tackling the climate crisis was about buying more expensive products or was kind of an elite luxury,” said the U.S. House Representative from Texas, “we took a big hit.” 

But the abandonment of the Green New Deal is not about using new words to sell the same policy; by eliding mention of a fossil-fuel-free future, the stated policy objective has been scaled back. It is unquestionably an attempt to junk the litmus test and “move to the center,” however you wish to define what is “the center” and whatever you may think of the move’s political efficacy.  

On the other end of the Democratic spectrum, potential presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel is trying to earn populist cred with his proposal to divert funds now earmarked for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities and redirect them to community colleges. “The priority for America should be education, not detention,” argues the former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor. As the plan wouldn’t come close to diverting the entirety of the ICE budget, it is unlikely to sway hard-core progressives to embrace whom The American Prospect just dubbed “Wall Street’s Favorite Democrat.” But it is an example of a moderate tacking leftward and prioritizing working-class concerns. 

The Democratic Party can’t be easily carved up into ideological factions or generational camps, nor has it coalesced around a policy agenda or political strategy. Throughout the party, from the left to the center, we see Democrats balancing policy principles with electoral pragmatism, without a consensus on which policies are best on the merits and on which rhetorical framing (beyond “affordability”) or candidate persona would resonate with voters.  

The Democratic Party is divided, but these are fissures, not chasms. There is no schism, no civil war, playing out in midterm primaries (with the possible exception of the U.S. Senate primary in Michigan). It is a party poised to win big in the midterms and then face big questions on what to do next. 

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