Guess What Moderate Democratic Voters Aren’t Anymore? Moderate.

Two new polls suggest that moderate Democrats too want higher taxes on the rich and some measure of economic populism. Moderate isn’t what it was in 1992.

The center-left group Third Way held a conference last week where moderate Democratic strategists and politicians blasted progressive ideas and the party’s left wing. Third Way and other centrist Democratic groups espouse positions such as opposing Medicare for All and wealth taxes. In Washington, the idea that these groups speak for moderates across the country is never questioned. But now, some evidence is emerging that suggests Democratic voters who describe themselves as moderate are in a different place. They want Democrats to push harder to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations and don’t think the party is overly liberal on issues such as abortion and transgender rights. 

This distinction between moderate Democratic voters and the party’s moderate elites is critical to understand. Moderate Democratic voters are not centrists clamoring for a return to the Clinton era or rebukes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. So progressive groups and politicians can probably push rank-and-file Democratic voters to the left on a wide range of issues. And more center-left Democratic politicians must (and increasingly do) adopt more progressive positions to remain viable in a party where even the people who call themselves moderate have fairly liberal views. 

I’m basing this analysis in part on a recent poll of some 2,400 prime Democratic voters (those who vote regularly in primaries) conducted in January on behalf of The New Republic by Embold Research. Respondents were given five choices to describe their ideology: conservative, moderate, moderate-to-liberal, liberal, and progressive. Only 12 percent said they identify as moderate, while another 21 percent called themselves moderate-to-liberal. And the interesting thing is that even among those two groups, their beliefs are pretty liberal.

Around 70 percent of moderates (combining the moderate and moderate-to-liberal respondents) said Democrats are........

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