The Problem for Democratic Optimists

Can the Democratic Party as currently constituted move to the center?

After the 2024 election, many sympathetic politicians and commentators made it quite clear that they would like the party to do so. It will be an uphill struggle.

There is evidence that the process of moderation has the potential to result in unintended adverse consequences.

Over the past three decades, according to Pew Research, the share of the Democratic electorate made up of voters with high school degrees or less — shorthand in polling for the working class — has fallen from 55 percent to 25 percent. Over the same period, the share of Democrats with college degrees has grown from 21 to 45 percent.

These widely recognized changes in levels of educational attainment have coincided with an ideological shift. Gallup found that in 1994, 48 percent of Democrats described themselves as moderate while 25 percent said they were liberal or very liberal and 25 percent said they were conservative or very conservative.

By 2024, 30 years later, Gallup reported that a solid majority of Democrats, 55 percent, said they were liberal or very liberal, 34 percent said they were moderate and 9 percent described themselves as conservative or very conservative.

In other words, the base of support for a moderate Democratic candidate has shrunk, while the base of support for a liberal candidate in a Democratic primary has more than doubled.