‘Not going back to Bidenism:’ Centrist think tank wants Democrats to pivot to center

To win elections and regain control of the White House and Congress, the Democratic Party must pivot to the political middle and overperform with moderate voters, a centrist think tank argued in Las Vegas.

Third Way brought its “Winning the Middle” conference to Caesars Palace, where attendees on Thursday listened to the group’s representatives, prominent Nevada Democrats, and political insiders.

The roughly 75 people in attendance were presented with polling that the think tank says proves its point of pivoting to the middle.

Speakers included Attorney General Aaron Ford, who’s running for Nevada governor, and Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, who was slated to briefly discuss voter registration in the state.

Rosen, Ford address conference

In a prerecorded video, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., touted her electoral victories, bipartisan record and her moderation approach of “agree where you can.”

She criticized some in the left-wing of her party who she said have proposed “pie-in-the sky ideas.”

While she also was critical of President Donald Trump’s economic policies, she highlighted co-sponsoring the No Tax on Tips Act, an idea first introduced by the Republican president.

Ford outlined Nevada’s status as a purple state and how his winning strategy for his attorney general’s race relied on speaking to all voters with uniform messaging.

“I won because we built a real coalition: Republicans; Democrats; independents; suburban moms in Henderson; union workers in North Las Vegas, and Latinos in the valley who had been told over and over again that neither party was really speaking to them,” he said. “We spoke to all of them.”

He said continued support relies on the work he’s done in the office, echoing one of the themes in the conference.

‘Not going back to Bidenism’

Matt Bennett, Third Way’s executive vice president for public affairs, said it was important for Democrats to take back power.

“We’re not here to whine, we’re here to win,” he said. “The good news is that the center of the country right now is wide open. The bad news is they don’t much like what they’re seeing from us, either.”

He said the 2024 red wave — including Trump’s swing states’ sweep — was not a one-off but a generational warning.

Bennett said that left-wing Democrats have tried to steer the party to their side since 2010 with proposals like “defund the police,” open borders and cancel culture.

“And they have in the process kind of elevated ideas and rhetoric that get applause at (Democratic Socialists of America) meetings,” he said. “Some of this is pretty fringe, but all of it helps create the impression that Democrats are extreme and not mainstream. And that’s very, very bad.”

Even former President Joe Biden pivoted to the left after he was elected, according to Bennett, who cited the previous administration’s border policies and proposal of forgiving student loans.

“At times, the administration sounded like a caricature of wokeness,” he said.

Added Bennett: “If we’re going to become the party that can win the middle anytime, anywhere, we have to make clear that this country is not going back to Trump 2.0 or 3.0, but we’re also not going back to Bidenism. We’re going to chart a new course.”

In mid-April, Third Way and Global Strategy Group surveyed 1,000 Nevada Democrats who are likely to vote in the 2028 presidential primary.

Poll of Nevada Democrats

The poll found that 28 percent of Nevada Democrats identified as moderate, while 26 percent said they were liberal, according to the poll. About 22 percent identified as progressive, 5 percent as socialist and 3 percent as conservative.

Lanae Erickson, Third Way’s senior vice president for social policy, education and politics, presented the findings at the conference.

The most common Nevada Democrats, she explained, are moderate women over 55 years old without a college degree, who rarely read the New York Times or post about politics on social media, if at all.