Don't Buy Into DECIDING TO WIN's Static, Poll-Driven Strategy
We can't win with a "finger-to-the-wind" approach to what we fight for.
If you read the various strategy memos laying out a path forward for the Democratic brand, you’ll find a lot of consensus. Mike Lux in his Soul of the Party Substack summarized it succinctly just the other day.
Dems need to:
Attract swing voters just as much as we need to turn out more base voters.
Reach out to independent minded and swing voters wary of the national Democratic brand on some issues, especially cultural issues.
Use language that is more plain spoken and less politically correct, sounding less like college professors and more like waitresses, nurses, and construction workers.
Recruit and support viable working class candidates who relate to their districts in rural America and red states.
And then there is this: “I also believe that Democrats should talk about the issues that (a) voters care the most about, which are mostly kitchen table economics, and (b) Democrats should talk as much as they can about the policies they believe in that are most popular with voters.”
But there’s one widely-circulate game plan that takes that last point way too far – the Deciding to Win strategy memo emanating from the centrist WelcomePAC.
They aren’t just advancing the sensible notion that Democrats should talk more about our most popular plans and ideas. In our communications and “in our approach to governance,” Deciding to Win calls for “less emphasis on issues like climate change, democracy, abortion, and identity and cultural issues.”
The Deciding to Win report insists that the organization “does not advocate for giving up our party’s core values or for refusing to stand up for disadvantaged groups. Not does deciding to win advocate for being feckless or weak”
Then they put forward a simple process for doing exactly that.
They cite surveys asking people two questions about a host of issues. How much do you think Democrats prioritize the issue? And how much do you think Democrats should prioritize the issue?
If the “do prioritize” number is higher than the “should prioritize” one, time for a change “in our approach to governance.”
And make no mistake: “In our approach to governance” is code language for deciding where we stand and what we’re willing to fight for.
It’s a status-quo reinforcing, poll-driven way to decide what the Democratic Party should stand for.
Climate change might objectively be one of the most critical challenges of our time. But tough luck if it’s Deciding to Win do/should index is too high.
Worst of all, the whole approach ignores how positive social change happens and embraces the status quo in ways that threaten to close the door to progress on issues that really matter.
“Guns, Gays and Abortion”
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, “guns, gays, and abortion” was cryptic shorthand for right-wing Republican strategies using this trio of “wedge issues” to put liberal Democratic candidates on the defensive.
But here’s the thing. All three of those issues have lost much of their disruptive, electoral power over time. That didn’t just happen. It took decades of political organizing, community outreach and legal advocacy to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.
It’s why we see today’s current Republican emphasis on transgender issues and why Republicans no longer campaign on issues like abortion and marriage equality.
Here’s how Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne put it in a 2024 post-election column:
““Supporters of reproductive rights have won the national debate on abortion, even if it might not feel that way to them. One side can know it has prevailed in an argument when many on the other side simply stop making their case. This is the story of abortion in the 2024 campaign — and of same-sex marriage, too . . .”
“The right turned to highlighting transgender issues precisely because there is now broad support for so much of the rest of the LGBTQ+ rights agenda.”
That hard-won progress wouldn’t be possible if all we did is make sure everything we work for and fight for is already polling well with voters.
Dionne’s article concluded with this reminder (emphasis added):
“Being mindful of the largely hidden liberal victories of 2024 does not mean downplaying the challenges Democrats face — or the dangers Trump’s genuinely radical agenda presents. But to acknowledge the gains is to see that the country Trump will lead is neither as supportive of his agenda as he claims nor as allergic to progressive change as many of his adversaries fear. One defeat, however stunning, does not discredit the value of persuasion and coalition-building. They take time. They still work.”
Conclusion
As Democrats work to win the critical 2026 and 2028 elections, we have to be smart and clear-headed. That means admitting working class people have been taking it on the chin for decades under both Republicans and Democrats. And it means recognizing that reconnecting with working-class voters is a substantive issue, not just a messaging one.
People living paycheck to paycheck and feeling unheard and unseen by the Democratic party aren’t wrong. No messaging shift will work unless Democrats back it up with action. We have to advance an economic populist agenda and fight like hell to make it felt in peoples’ daily lives.
We need candidates who can give voice to the needs and aspirations of people struggling with economic uncertainty as easily as they represent people worried about climate change or the spread of authoritarianism. And they need to talk about economic hardship in a much more visceral, emotional way.
What we don’t need is a “finger-to-the-wind” politics with Democrats running and hiding from any fight that polls say is an uphill battle.
We didn’t lose in 2024 by standing with trans kids dealing with outrageous harassment and heartbreak. We lost because we didn’t demonstrate the same kind of empathy and concern for working-class families worried sick about how to pay their bills, feed their family and carve out a brighter future for their children.
Sure, standing up for peoples’ rights doesn’t mean taking the bait every time our opponents try to draw us into crazy conversations. But the way forward is widening our circle of compassion, not narrowing it.