For yet another election cycle, well-funded centrist groups are recycling arguments that feel as dated as a Blockbuster rental: because many voters call themselves "moderate," they insist the winning formula is a combative centrism—picking fights with Trump while distancing from the left, avoiding transformative promises, and keeping corporate and wealthy interests comfortable.
But this narrative oversimplifies what voters actually mean by "moderate." The evidence that centrism itself is an electoral advantage is shaky at best. As data journalist G. Elliott Morris has documented, claims about the electoral benefits of moderation are often overstated. Moderate Democrats may perform slightly better than a typical Democrat, but the estimated edge is small and fraught with uncertainty.
More fundamentally, "moderate" is a self-description, not a policy platform. Voters don't necessarily think in the ideological boxes that pundits and operatives use. A voter can call themselves moderate and still want candidates who champion economic populism and challenge the political establishment.
Recent public opinion research underscores this disconnect. Data for Progress, which I lead, asked likely voters nationwide which entities have the most negative impact on society and the economy. The top answers: billionaires, corporate landlords, and artificial intelligence companies. Among self-identified moderates, a majority say billionaires' existence signals a dysfunctional economy, and that wealth was amassed through exploitation, luck, or inheritance—not hard work or innovation.
The same pattern emerges in the most competitive congressional districts. The Working Families Party's research across 18 toss-up districts and Michigan found that 80% of voters believe elected officials care more about wealthy donors than constituents. More than half of moderates and independents there prefer candidates who challenge the status quo and take on corporations and billionaires over those who defend the establishment.
That's not a constituency clamoring for conventional centrism. Our report on swing voters tells a similar story. A majority of 2026 swing voters—56%—call themselves moderate. But when asked which three policies would make them definitely vote for a Democratic candidate in the midterms, they pick progressive economic measures over conservative cultural stances. The top choice: raising taxes on the wealthy (28%), followed by creating a Medicare for All system (24%). Also popular: banning AI from setting prices or wages based on personal data (21%) and restricting private utilities from passing unreasonable costs to customers (20%).
Swing voters aren't asking Democrats to split the difference. They want tangible solutions to lower living costs and take on the powerful interests they blame for making life harder. Centrism can backfire. In our polling, a hypothetical Democrat running on a populist economic message beat a Republican by 15 points, while a conventional Democrat won by just 6. In other matchups, candidates who reject corporate PAC money outperform those who accept funds from groups like AIPAC, AI, crypto, and Big Pharma.
The lesson isn't that every voter is secretly a socialist. It's that the center of public opinion is not the same as the center of the political establishment. That's why "combative centrism" is revealing: combativeness must be directed at something. You can't promise to fight the status quo while defending the incrementalism that sustains it—or take money from the same interests you claim to oppose.
Moving right for its own sake won't win over moderates and swing voters. They're looking for candidates who will lower costs, put workers first, and take on concentrated economic power. Moderate voters aren't asking Democrats to do less. They're asking them to make lives better and take on the powerful interests standing in the way—and to do something that actually works.
Ryan O'Donnell is executive director of Data for Progress.
