Instead of Pandering, Democrats Should Try Changing Voters’ Minds

How can the party of liberalism make liberal ideas more popular? By creating a more liberal electorate. Yes, it can be done. Here are five ways how.

What Is a Democrat For?

1Instead of Pandering, Democrats Should Try Changing Voters’ Minds

2These Are Not Your Father’s Democrats

3How the Democrats Can Play Offense on Immigration

Early last year, polls and media commentary suggested that crime would be the defining issue of the New York City mayoral race. Then, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign started to take off. By the end of the race, the news organizations that conduct exit polls asked voters to choose the top issue animating their votes among these five choices: crime, cost of living, health care, immigration, and transportation. Mamdani had literally changed the language of the election, with pollsters asking about his framing (“cost of living”) instead of the usual terms, “jobs” and “the economy.” He had also changed voters’ priorities: A whopping 55 percent said cost of living was the most important issue, compared to only 22 percent who said crime.

And on Election Day in the Big Apple last November, nearly 40 percent of the city’s registered voters between ages 18 and 29 cast ballots, a massive increase from the 11 percent in 2021, according to Gothamist.

Mamdani didn’t win by looking at polls and then campaigning according to them. A 34-year-old socialist who had previously tweeted “#DefundTheNYPD” probably could not have won an election about who is toughest on crime against incumbent ex-cop Eric Adams and a pro-police Democrat like Andrew Cuomo. Instead, Mamdani, through his relentless focus on the costs of rent, groceries, and childcare, primed regular voters to judge the candidates on their affordability policies instead of their anti-crime ones and energized young, liberal voters who might have otherwise stayed home.

New York is a unique place, but Democrats across the country need to do what Mamdani did: create a more liberal electorate. American politics today is driven by ideology in a way that wasn’t true in the past. There used to be self-described conservative Democrats in Congress, particularly from the South, sent to Capitol Hill by constituents who were stalwart Democrats but wary of greater civil rights for Black Americans and other more liberal values. On the flip side, there were Republican politicians in the Northeast who were more liberal on some issues than their Southern Democratic counterparts.

But over the last few decades, American politics has become more ideologically polarized. Democratic politicians and voters are to the left of Republicans on nearly every issue. People of color with conservative policy views are increasingly backing Republicans, while white college graduates are trending Democratic because of their more liberal social values.

A more ideological electorate doesn’t doom Democrats. Only about a third of Americans or a little more describe themselves as conservatives, so Republicans can’t dominate politics just with those voters. At the same time, even fewer (about 25 percent) call themselves liberals. And while Americans have more left-leaning stands on many issues, such as raising the minimum wage, they often also agree with conservative concerns about bloated and inefficient government.

Democrats can win in this environment, particularly when Republicans take power and push the GOP’s unpopular agenda. But often, voters quickly turn on Democrats when they’re in charge. For Democrats to consistently win elections and prevent the continued rise of right-wing authoritarianism in the United States, ultimately they must get more Americans to consider themselves liberal, hold liberal stands on issues, prioritize liberal values like equality over conservative ones like self-reliance, and make sure those with liberal mindsets vote in every election at every level of government.

Today’s Democrats, more than past iterations of the party, are defending an ideology and worldview—multicultural social democracy. Equal rights and economic opportunity for all; power in the hands of the people, not billionaires and corporations. So they need to spread that gospel to more Americans. And yes, it can be done. Here are five ways how.

1. Use Their Bully Pulpits

Most people have loosely held, fickle views on policy issues. That gives politicians two superpowers. First, when elected officials take positions, voters often mindlessly adopt them, particularly if the official is from their political party. And second, even when politicians aren’t moving people to their exact stances, they can redirect the attention of voters, media, and members of the opposite party to their preferred topics. For example, Republicans are focused more on affordability now because of how Mamdani’s campaign made that issue top of mind for voters and journalists.

The new mayor aside, Democrats are vastly underutilizing their ability to direct Americans toward liberal values, positions, and topics. This must change.

I don’t know whether Republicans have read the social science on the malleability of the electorate, but they sure act as if they have. Donald Trump has moved GOP voters to be more skeptical of immigration and efforts to address the effects of racism. And changing the Republican Party inevitably changes the country overall. Trumpist ideas have been widely adopted in the 23 states dominated by Republicans. I never imagined 10 years ago that pollsters would be asking Americans about critical race theory—never mind finding that a big bloc of Americans oppose teaching it. But Trump and his allies have made diversity, equity, and inclusion, concepts widely supported a few years ago, so controversial that numerous institutions have backed away from them. “Republicans make it their business to reshape voters’ realities,” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal political strategist.

In contrast, many Democratic Party strategists and politicians seem to think that voters have firm, largely unchanging views. So the party’s main strategy is conducting polls to see what voters like—and, as noted above, often doing so reactively and unimaginatively—and then positioning itself as close as possible to a hypothetical “median voter.”

“Pollingism,” as Shenker-Osorio has critically dubbed this approach, has some advantages. It’s low-risk. It appeals to moderate voters. It’s partly why Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past nine presidential elections. But Democratic poll-chasing, combined with Trumpian radicalism, has not resulted in GOP defeats. Instead, elections have remained close while Trump pushes public opinion and discourse rightward on many issues.

Democratic politicians urgently need to adopt the GOP view of public opinion—that it’s movable, and it’s their job to move it.

They can learn from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other members of the party’s progressive economics bloc. Billionaires and big tech companies used to be venerated. Then, that bloc started pointing out the damage they were doing to the country. Their leadership has totally reshaped American economic discourse. Voters are increasingly skeptical of big businesses and concerned about income inequality. Pollsters, including those at Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, now ask if billionaires are good for society, and only a tiny fraction of Americans say they are. Centrist politicians have been pushed leftward, with Joe Biden warning of oligarchy in one of his final speeches as president. Trump at times has hinted that he supports greater taxes on the rich. He never follows through, but his rhetoric suggests the president also sees rising antipathy for the super-wealthy.

One lesson from all of that is Democrats should be more populist on economic issues. Yes, sure. But the bigger lesson is that there are liberal arguments on every issue that will resonate with voters if Democrats make them repeatedly, forcefully, and compellingly. Diverting some police funding to social services, letting in........

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