At a conference in Charleston, South Carolina, moderate Democrats gathered to discuss how to win back voters they lost in the 2024 election. The event, titled 'Winning the Middle', was hosted by the centrist think tank Third Way and featured former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who urged Democrats to drop what he called an 'elite' tone and speak more like 'regular human beings'. Walsh, who left the Republican party over Donald Trump, said Democrats come across as 'professors, academics, elites' and need to connect with voters on a more personal level.
Participants criticised the use of 'therapy-speak' and 'organizer jargon', such as land acknowledgements, 'birthing person' instead of woman, and 'justice-involved persons' for prisoners. They argued that such language alienates moderate voters. Jon Cowan, Third Way's president, said Democrats must define themselves as 'moderates and normies' in red and purple areas, or risk being labelled as leftwing radicals. 'If Democrats believe that, we're going to lose. It is total horseshit,' he said.
The conference also focused on policy messaging. Melissa Morales, founder of the Latino voter outreach group Somos Votantes, described how framing the child tax credit as a way to 'lift' children out of poverty actually reduced support among Latino voters. Instead, she said, presenting it as a way for working parents to get back to work and care for their families increased support and made voters feel the party cared about them.
Cost of living was highlighted as the most potent issue for Democrats across the political spectrum. Attendees joked that consultants had been saying 'affordability' more often than their children's names. The conference comes as the Democratic National Committee has refused to release its autopsy of the 2024 election, calling it a 'distraction'. A progressive group, RootsAction, released its own postmortem in December, arguing that courting the middle while failing to forcefully criticise Israel's actions in Gaza turned off liberal and working-class voters, leading to a historic collapse in turnout.
