Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach make a compelling case that aiming to woo median voters through moderate positions is an antiquated political tactic that no longer yields electoral dividends in today’s nationalized climate. “The median voter theorem made sense in an era of stable coalitions, low polarization, and localized elections,” they write. “That era is over. Democrats need strategies built for this new reality.”

Our research at Way to Win, a strategic donor collaborative focused on data-driven media and grassroots strategy, independently reached the same conclusion. Our recent report, Towards Strength, outlines the path forward for Democrats to rebuild a winning coalition, drawing on ten voter-centered studies conducted about 2024. We found that among some sixteen million Democratic “defectors”—voters who had previously voted for Democrats but either chose differently or skipped in 2024—views about the party’s moderation, or lack of it, never emerged as a meaningful signal. In fact, interpreting these voters’ views through a conventional ideological lens distorted more than it clarified. And these voters matter. They would have voted for Harris by a two-to-one margin if they had cast a ballot, and nearly two-thirds favor Democrats in the generic ballot for 2026.

Five main themes emerged from our research, highlighting Democrats’ central failures in 2024 while also pointing toward a viable path forward—one that requires breaking decisively with decades of Washington’s median-voter conventional wisdom.

First, voters wanted change. The system is crushing them, and they simply didn’t believe that Kamala Harris would deliver something different. In an October 2024 New York Times/Siena poll, no less than 96 percent of voters said that the political and economic system needed changes, including 59 percent who said it needed “major” changes and 11 percent who said it needed to be “torn down entirely.” Harris’s assertion that she couldn’t think of “a thing” she would have done differently from Biden only served to cement her as the status quo candidate.

Second, Democrats’ economic message didn’t land. Amid persistent inflation, Harris’s vision failed to persuade voters, with two major downstream effects: demotivating potential Democratic voters and leaving her more open to Trump’s attacks. We found no evidence that moderation would have improved voters’ view of Harris or increased their likelihood of voting. As our report notes, while some voters expressed concern that Democrats may have gone “too far left,” many believe, even now, that both parties are equally beholden to billionaires and not fighting for working people and the disadvantaged. The bottom line was that voters didn’t believe Harris would slash their cost of living, nor did they believe she would address structural economic issues like poverty and inequality.

Third, Democrats aren’t doomed. Voters were extremely frustrated in 2024, and Trump’s actions have only exacerbated that. Since taking office, Trump has blown any possible demographic “realignment” in the wake of his reelection—a development that was crystallized by election results in November 2025.

But even before that electoral clapback, our analysis of Sunbelt voter files showed that Black, Latino, and young 2020 Biden voters—in the swing states of Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina—all sat out the 2024 election at high rates, suggesting that Trump’s apparent “gains” in vote share among them were less a long-term trend than a short-term blip punctuated by the absence of those voters’ peers. Our polling of these voters showed they largely detest Trump and MAGA, while two-thirds hold a favorable view of congressional Democrats and 62 percent favored a generic Democrat in the midterms. They are very available to Democrats, but trust gaps remain.

Fourth, unchecked right-wing narratives, powered by the right’s advantage in the media ecosystem, have fueled widespread cynicism. In our focus groups, some participants parroted right-wing talking points that had seeped into their feeds despite their apparent disgust with MAGA. The perception that Democrats aren’t really any different than Republicans, that nothing ever changes, and that their vote wouldn’t matter anyway came up repeatedly. Participants felt like bystanders to democracy with little agency and no real choices, and the lack of a Democratic presidential primary supercharged that sentiment.

In other words, the complaint wasn’t that Democrats were too progressive or extreme but that they lacked a compelling message. As much as they disliked Trump, these voters said he had offered voters a narrative for why their lives felt so stuck—specifically, immigrants and trans people were ruining things for everyone. That attracted a lot of adherents in the absence of any counternarrative from Democrats, who seemed oblivious to much of voters’ pain.

The notion that moderation would serve as a corrective to this perception is wildly off base. The millions of Biden voters who sat out crave more differentiation, not less, and a grander vision of an economic and political system that they could thrive within. None of them were in the mood to tinker around the edges. The antidote to cynicism isn’t to get small but to go big.

Fifth, ideology is a limited framework for understanding these challenges. Trump’s many first-year failings present a ripe opportunity for Democrats to create a movement around a new vision for the country. A coalition that wants change is out there waiting to be built, and these voters largely already agree with inclusive populism—an economically populist agenda and narrative that also refutes cultural attacks.

An ideological reframe is much too small to tackle the disillusionment of these voters. Instead, Democrats must present a new framework for why the American dream has slipped away and how to get it back. We have routinely tested such a framework and found it not only gets widespread buy-in—it has the advantage of being based in fact. The richest 1 percent have taken $50 trillion in wealth from 90 percent of Americans over the past several decades. Some 72 percent of Biden voters who sat out for Harris—and roughly two-thirds of all voters—find that explanation for our country’s problems more compelling than the notion that too much government spending, immigrants, and trans people are ruining their lives.

The power of this worldview is that it can work for candidates who span the ideological spectrum from James Talarico, Zohran Mamdani, and Mallory McMorrow to relative moderates like Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill. This kind of inclusive populism can become the center of gravity for a new common-sense story that animates a winning pro-democracy coalition and even wins back some Trump voters.

Putting all this together, the lesson is clear. This is a moment for thinking beyond conventional wisdom. Targeting median voters through moderation is an outmoded tactic that failed to build the electorate Democrats needed to show up in 2024 and will need again, particularly in 2028. MAGA has already demolished the world we once knew, and their new world—with a truly rigged political system and a menacing police state—will allow Trump and his robber barons to continue plundering America while evading accountability.

The speed and forcefulness with which they are shaping that new world, however, gives Democrats an opening to offer a populist vision of accountability, equity, and inclusion in a system where we can all thrive. As we concluded in Towards Strength, “If we are to succeed, the singular focus of Democrats across the political spectrum must be responding to voters’ desire for change by taking their concerns seriously, and imagining, fighting for, and building a better world.”