CHARLESTON, South Carolina—Democratic pragmatists are mobilizing early to block Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other left-wing firebrands from the party’s 2028 presidential nomination, aiming to shape a field of contenders that rejects progressive litmus tests rendering the party’s standard bearer unelectable in November.
The first presidential primaries and caucuses are roughly two years away. But this week in South Carolina, a key state that could crown the next Democratic nominee, more than 200 party operatives gathered to share strategies for recapturing crucial voting blocs—young men, Hispanics, the working class, and others—that moved toward President Donald Trump in significant numbers in 2024. They also discussed reams of qualitative and quantitative data that show Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive stalwarts are not only weak general election candidates but a mismatch for the typical Democratic primary voter.
“Let us scroll ahead two years,” Third Way president Jonathan Cowan said as he opened “Winning The Middle,” a conference the centrist Democratic think tank hosted this week in Charleston. “The primaries are wrapping up and we are close to having a nominee. Did we make sure our nominee hasn’t taken toxic far-left positions that might have raised money and won online applause but are potent, ready-made Republican attack ads? Did we relentlessly prioritize victory over virtue-signaling?”
Cowan name-checked Ocasio-Cortez (and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent), claiming that the self-proclaimed socialist has a thin track record of growing the Democratic coalition and winning elections outside of her New York City district. For instance, since 2018, congressional candidates backed by the New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of pragmatic Democrats in the House of Representatives, have flipped 50 Republican-held seats. And the progressive group that initially recruited Ocasio Cortez to run for office? “Justice Democrats have flipped zero [seats]. I’m not misreading. Zero,” Cowan said. (Justice Democrats did not respond to an email requesting comment.)
Beyond electability, the broader argument Cowan and his colleagues are making to fellow Democrats—particularly those mulling White House bids—is that it’s unnecessary to run as a progressive or socialist to win the nomination. According to fresh data presented by Third Way during the conference, the majority of voters who reliably show up and pull the lever in Democratic primaries are center-left versus left-wing. “They characterize themselves primarily as liberal and moderate, with only a tiny slice calling themselves socialist. … They care more about winning than ideological purity,” the polling memorandum reads.
The survey showed that 43 percent of Democratic primary voters view themselves as “liberal” and 34 percent as “moderate.” Just 11 percent consider themselves “progressive” and nearly as many (5 percent) say they are “conservative” as do those (6 percent) who say they are “socialist.” This breakdown plays out in the policy preferences expressed by Democratic primary voters in this poll. For instance, 66 percent favor reforming Immigration and Customs Enforcement versus abolishing the agency; just 34 percent are for shuttering ICE and halting interior immigration enforcement.
Ocasio-Cortez, 36, otherwise known as “AOC,” is serving her fourth term on Capitol Hill.
Other Democrats—Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, to name two—have caught the attention of committed progressives ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign, set to begin in earnest the day after this year’s midterm elections. But none appear to be backed with the same intensity as the congresswoman, nor do they come as close as she does to embodying a next-generation Sanders, who succeeded in pushing the ideological center of the party further left despite falling short in bids for the Democratic nomination in 2016 and 2020.
If Ocasio-Cortez runs for president, she would begin the race as a clear underdog. The list of potential Democratic contenders is long; many are more seasoned, better versed on an array of domestic and foreign policy issues and benefit from deep political and executive experience. Meanwhile, a sitting House member has not won the nomination since James A. Garfield in 1880. Indeed, the Ohio Republican is the last incumbent congressman to advance directly to the White House.
Yet buzz about a possible Ocasio-Cortez bid is inescapable—despite her keeping any 2028 plans under wraps—and betting sites Kalshi and Polymarket both project the congresswoman as the second most likely Democratic nominee, behind California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Third Way certainly isn’t taking chances. In an interview with The Dispatch, the think tank’s vice president for policy, Jim Kessler, explained that the “Winning the Middle” conference was the beginning of a robust, two-year campaign to educate Democratic insiders and voters about the risks associated with nominating Ocasio-Cortez or some other staunch progressive.
“She’s way too far left. We can’t elect a congresswoman from Queens. The positions she’s taken in the past makes it impossible for her to win a general election, she cannot win a general election. She would lose 40 states at a minimum,” Kessler said, on the sidelines of a gathering that convened inside a downtown Charleston hotel ballroom. “There’s a reason, for the most part, [Democrats have] been nominating centrist Democrats—and when occasionally we do not, we get our asses kicked.” (Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to an email requesting comment.)
Trump’s narrow but decisive victory over then-Vice President Kamala Harris sparked a combative debate among Democrats over what went wrong and how to prevent more disappointment in 2028. Although some overlap exists among the activists, operatives, and elected officials who comprise the party’s competing factions, the fault lines generally pit ideologically progressive purists on one side and pragmatic liberals and centrists on the other. In particular, the argument between these two camps has revolved around progressive activist groups and their impact on Democratic campaigns—presidential campaigns especially.
Third Way, based in Washington, D.C., and founded in 2005, is hardly the only group or initiative to wage battle against the far left on behalf of the center-left. Others include Majority Democrats, Searchlight Institute, Welcome, and Working Class Project. But Third Way has been at this the longest, so much so that this week’s conference in the Holy City is a reprise of a similar symposium it convened for the same purpose in 2019, ahead of Trump’s first reelection bid.
Then as now, they urged Democratic presidential candidates to resist the siren song of the progressive. Almost the entirety of the 2020 field (including Harris) opted for a hard left turn, which Kessler blamed on various factors, including the influence of the Iowa caucus, the first nominating contest held that cycle; affirmation by vocal progressives on social media; and the fundraising rewards bestowed by progressive small-dollar donors. Only Joe Biden, then a former vice president, followed Third Way’s advice. And of course, Biden won the nomination.
Which explains the topics raised during “Winning The Middle” and why Third Way returned to South Carolina to attempt, yet again, to steer the party’s emerging field of 2028 contenders toward the political middle.
The panels focused on debunking myths and misunderstandings about some of the coveted demographic blocs that are considered a foundational component of the Democratic coalition but moved away from the party in 2024, among them young men, Hispanics, and black voters—with an emphasis on black men. “Black men in a large part are renegotiating their relationship with the Democratic Party,” Democratic strategist Josh Doss said, during a discussion about the groups that make up the party’s electoral base. “One of the things the Democratic Party is doing poorly is speaking to us about poverty reduction and not wealth generation.”
“Latino voters don’t gravitate to the extremes,” added Doss’ fellow panelist, Democratic strategist Clarissa Martinez. She explained that many Hispanic voters are blue-collar and take pride in their work, which they view as not just necessary to support their families financially, but as their contribution to American prosperity. “And a lot of times I think what they hear from Democrats is more about programs that help people who can’t help themselves. And that, I think—it turns people off.”
But this panel and the other conversations that made up Third Way’s symposium could have been held anywhere. Why choose South Carolina?
The Palmetto State’s “first in the South” Democratic primary is dominated by black voters who are pragmatic and focused on winning. They rescued Biden’s flailing 2020 bid for the nomination after embarrassing losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada and set him on a path to victory. Coming back to South Carolina is Third Way’s way of saying: Ignore the progressive groups and build a campaign designed to succeed here in order to win not just the nomination but the White House as well.
“You have to meet this electorate where they are, not where you wish they were, not where social media leads you to try and take them. The Democratic primary here is beautifully diverse—and non-liberal,” Steve Benjamin, the former mayor of Columbia, the state capital, and a Third Way board member, said in an address to conference attendees. “African American does not mean liberal.”
