Latest news with #WelcomePAC
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Do WelcomeFest Democrats even know what's popular?
Centrist activists at the heart of a new push to control the direction of the Democratic party insist that they want Democrats to adopt positions that track with public opinion. But, as it stands, there is sparse evidence that their preferred platform is actually popular, according to researchers, with the advocates for a more centrist party also failing to recognize the impact that leaders can have on public opinion. Last week, centrist Democrats gathered in Washington, D.C. for an event billed as the largest public gathering of centrists in the Democratic Party, 'WelcomeFest.' The event served as a celebration of Democrats (and former Democrats) like former Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.V., who represented the party's center-right flank. The co-founder of the centrist billionaire funded Welcome PAC, Liam Kerr, even walked out on stage wearing a Joe Manchin West Virginia University Mountaineers football jersey, before delivering an opening statement in front of slides which surmised the group's vision for the party going forward as 'dogs,' referencing Blue Dogs; 'data'; and 'Slotkin,' referring to the freshman senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, who Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has taken a shine to. The closest thing to a thesis statement for the event, however, came from Lauren Harper Pope, a founder of the Welcome Party, the political organization behind the event, who described the group's mission as making sure 'Democrats are on the right side of public opinion.' G. Elliott Morris, a public opinion researcher and the proprietor of the Substack blog, 'Strength in Numbers,' said in an interview with Salon that 'it's very obvious, if you're a student of public opinion, that public opinion is very malleable and also very subject to the questions you're asking and the way you're measuring the thing you're trying to measure.' He suggested 'those two nuances are just not compatible with activism among these groups,' referring to those who attempt to position themselves on the "right side" of public opinion. In practical terms, however, being on the right side of public opinion appears to mean adopting more conservative policies on issues where a more conservative position appears to be more popular, like on immigration or the participation of transgender people in sports. In economic terms, the group has pushed towards the 'abundance agenda' which focuses on rolling back regulations that proponents say limit things like the construction of new housing. The problem, however, for the burgeoning centrist movement is that there's not a lot of evidence that the key tentpole of their centrist platform — rolling back regulations and saying no to advocacy groups in the pursuit of the abundance agenda — is popular. Josh Barro, a journalist and the proprietor of the 'Very Serious' Substack blog, touched on this in an interview he did with Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., at last week's centrist event, where he asked Torres, 'Is abundance actually popular ... in a place like New York?' Torres answered, saying, 'I feel like we need strong leadership, and look, we've seen the YIMBY movement gain momentum even in California and New York.' The YIMBY ('Yes in my backyard') movement refers to pro-development advocacy that stands in opposition to NIMBY ('Not in my backyard') positions that often limit development through restrictive zoning laws. This wasn't, however, the last time the issue came up at the event. When asked a follow-up question by Salon, Torres responded in an email saying 'A government that builds more affordable housing, more clean energy, and more infrastructure is not only good government. It's good politics.' Later, in a panel featuring Derek Thompson, a co-author of 'Abundance,' and Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., Marshall Kosloff, co-host of 'The Realignment' podcast, Kosloff confronted the panelists with polling from Demand Progress, a progressive polling firm, that tested whether the abundance message or an economic populist message resonated with respondents better. When presented with descriptions of both the abundance agenda, which focused on peeling back regulations, and an economic populist agenda, which focused on dismantling corporate power, the poll found that Democrats and independents preferred the economic populist message while Republicans preferred the abundance message. Auchincloss responded, saying that it was 'a bad-faith poll' and that the results are 'what happens when you test an economics textbook against a romance novel and tell people, 'What do you like to read better?'' In the survey, the abundance agenda was described as: 'The big problem is 'bottlenecks' that make it harder to produce housing, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges.' The populist agenda was described as: 'The big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government.' The survey found that 32.6% of Democrats, 68.8% of Republicans and 40.6% of independents said that the abundance message would make them more likely to vote for a candidate. The populist message, on the other hand, led 71.5% of Democrats, 39.6% of Republicans and 55.4% of independents to say they were more likely to vote for a candidate delivering that message. The survey did not test for the partisan affiliation of the candidate delivering the message. Economic messaging wasn't, however, the only place where centrists appeared to be adopting a minority opinion. When Torres was interrupted during his speech by anti-war protesters, organizers at the event started playing Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain,' and the Welcome Party's associated Substack called the protesters 'vain clowns.' While the 'popularists' mocked pro-Palestinian sentiment, Democrats have increasingly sympathized with Palestinians, with a recent Gallup poll finding that 59% of Democrats now sympathize with Palestinians more, while just 21% sympathize with Israelis more. In the general population, more Americans, 46% sympathize more with Israelis, compared to 33% who sympathize more with Palestinians, though sympathies have been shifting away from Israelis and towards Palestinians in recent years. However, in terms of concrete policy like legal actions taken against Israel, this shift has been more dramatic. Another survey from April, conducted by John Zogby Strategies, found that in terms of practical policy, 44% of respondents agreed with the International Criminal Court's findings that Israel's war on Gaza is tantamount to genocide, compared to 28% who disagreed with that statement. They've also begun to carve out a minority position in regards to the labor movement, advocating for pushing against unions at a point when Americans' approval of labor unions is near an all-time high. A 2024 Gallup survey found that 70% of Americans approve of unions while just 23% one point during the event, Barro asked, 'Is there a way to have a pro-abundance Democratic Party agenda in New York without breaking the strong link that exists between the New York Democratic Party and the labor movement?' The thinking goes that giving out contracts to unionzied companies, or requiring developers to do so, can increase labor costs for projects and potentially discourage development. Torres responded indirectly, saying: 'Everyone's voice should be heard, but no one's going to have veto power.' Barro has since gone on to advocate for 'fighting labor unions' in the name of abundance. Beyond staking out minority positions, the mission of staying on the 'right side of public opinion' also misses that the way that leaders can shape the way the public views on an issue. Research conducted by Morris alongside Verasight, a survey research firm, found that priming respondents with information about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a wrongfully deported Maryland resident, resulted in a reduction in support for the deportation of all undocumented immigrants. The survey found that, without priming, 44% of respondents supported blanket deportations of undocumented immigrants while 38% did not. Among respondents given information about Abrego Garcia's case, however, just 39% supported blanket deportations, while 43% reported opposing the deportations. Morris also tracked Trump's approval rating on the issue of immigration alongside how much attention the Abrego Garcia case was getting in the press. He found that Trump's approval rating on immigration decreased in correlation with an increase in the attention that was being paid to the case. 'It seems more sales tactics to me than a commitment to actually tracking and representing the average person,' Morris said of the centrist movement. 'They have their own set of beliefs that, for the past 15 months, have been supported by majorities in the particular ways that these polls have asked majorities those questions. But that's not necessarily going to be true in the future, given events, so they are now put in the situation where they have to assert that these things are popular,' Morris said. 'They just have a commitment to these values first and a commitment to the public second.' Kerr, the co-founder of the Welcome Party's PAC, when asked by Salon what happens when public opinion shifts on an issue, and whether Democrats should adopt a new position to reflect that shift, called the conundrum a 'classic political theory question.' 'The Burkean response — a representative 'owes you not his industry only but his judgement, and he betrays you if he sacrifices it to your opinion' — has some merit. But also you have to get elected in the first place,' Kerr said in an email. 'Most prominent issues are not ones where the public opinion has been rapidly shifting beyond where candidates were standing firm. The story of the last decade is more about candidates zooming past where voter opinion was. And the answer to that problem is candidates with deep values and the confidence to authentically represent those values both to voters and in how they vote in Congress.'
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Some Democrats want to reconcile with Musk. That would be a big mistake.
Even before Elon Musk and President Donald Trump escalated their feud Thursday, some Democrats were thinking of trying to entice the Tesla billionaire to their side. There's nothing wrong with the president's opposition looking for advantages against him as he continues his assault on U.S. institutions — an assault in which Musk has played a key role. But outright mending fences with Musk would be a mistake. Unfortunately, some Democrats and their allies are suggesting doing just that. Rep. Ro Khanna, the California congressman who has long been close to Silicon Valley, said of Musk that the party 'should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with.' Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York said that he was a 'believer in redemption,' though he acknowledged that Musk's track record might forestall a liberal comeback arc. And as Musk and Trump battled via social media in a personal fight that began over the president's spending bill, hurling invective and threats at one another, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California backed Musk against Trump, writing that without the billionaire, the president would be 'a Prisoner.' Influencers like Matthew Yglesias suggested Democrats try to flip Musk's allegiance. 'Anything that he does that moves more toward Democrats hurts Republicans,' centrist WelcomePAC co-founder Liam Kerr told Politico. This would be an error for several reasons. First, Musk is no ally to the Democratic Party's base of voters, who overwhelmingly despise him on cultural grounds. Even before Thursday's blowup, he was consistently less popular than Trump, and the voters who did like him were almost all Republicans, who will surely stick with the president. Second, the policies he pushed while in the White House have already led to untold levels of misery and deprivation both overseas and at home. The full extent of the damage the billionaire has done won't be apparent for months, if not years. Experts estimate that recent cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development alone — the agency Musk bragged about feeding 'into the wood chipper' — will lead to tens or even hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Finally, Musk has been pushing a radical, right-wing agenda for half a decade. As I detail in my recent book, his efforts to use his wealth to reshape the media and public discourse have been deleterious for the country and have poisoned American politics. It's hard to see an easy way back to a positive relationship for the two men. The president in particular has a history of holding grudges, and Musk can hardly walk back sharing footage of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein or approving calls for his impeachment. 'I talked to an insider today who said it's irreparable,' Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Thursday evening. After reports that the two would speak by phone Friday, a senior White House official told NBC News that Trump is 'not interested' in a call. So what should Democrats do? For now, let them fight. As Alex Shephard noted at The New Republic, 'Musk and Trump's feud causes division within the Republican Party, imperils one of the worst pieces of legislation in modern history, and makes everyone involved in it look like a childish idiot.' Every hour the two men spend sniping at each other is an hour they're not spending destroying federal agencies, cutting social services or fomenting far-right extremism. The president and his billionaire ally are at each other's throats and neither man may well come out on top, and the Democrats don't even need to do anything about it. They can just sit back and watch. In the future, once Democrats have regained the levers of power, they will need to clean up the disaster Trump and Musk have created. As I wrote here at MSNBC on Monday, Democrats should investigate Musk and his business dealings with the federal government, conduct hearings, subpoena the billionaire, and generally hold him accountable for his actions to the fullest extent possible. And they should take the same attitude toward Trump, whether he is still in office or not. Musk's tenure as a White House employee and perhaps even his position as a Trump ally have almost certainly come to an end. But he and the president remain threats to democracy. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Centrist WelcomeFest Was Everything That's Wrong With the Democratic Party
Inside a cavernous, neon-lit ballroom in the bowels of a joyless Washington D.C. hotel, Carly Simon blasts from the speakers in an effort drown out the chants of 'Free, Free Palestine' from protesters who've crashed a conversation with Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) — the gay, Black, self-described Zionist representing one of the most Democratic districts in the country. Liam Kerr, co-founder of the centrist-supporting political action committee Welcome PAC — decked out in a West Virginia Mountaineers jersey with senator-turned-lobbyist Joe Manchin's name emblazoned across his back — bodies out a bespectacled, man-bunned individual trying to film the scuffle. It would have been a particularly crude piece of performance art depicting the Democratic Party in its present incarnation, but unfortunately, it was real. Organizers of WelcomeFest, an event billed as 'the largest public gathering of centrists,' were expecting disruptions when they convened in D.C. on Thursday — you could even say they welcomed them. Earlier that day, as Kerr kicked off the festivities, he drew a contrast between his own apparel and a t-shirt he told the crowd organizers had on hand for any protesters who might show up. The tee featured a depiction of Babydog, the beloved bulldog belonging to Jim Justice, the West Virginia Republican who replaced Manchin in the U.S. Senate this year, and his slogan, 'Delivering Justice for West Virginia.' 'I am wearing a jersey of someone who stepped on the West Virginia campus 50 years ago on a football scholarship, who is the number one-rated 'Wins Above Replacement' candidate,' Kerr told the crowd of his Manchin jersey. (Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, is a sports statistic that measures a certain player's contributions to their team. More on that later.) The Justice t-shirt was meant to send a message to progressive-minded: If you're not with us, you're against us. Or, as Kerr put it even more bluntly, 'The choice is Jim Justice or Joe Manchin.' Manchin's dark money group, Americans Together, was, incidentally, one of the sponsors of the event. Over the course of the afternoon, speakers at WelcomeFest offered their diagnosis for what ails the Democratic Party, which might be summed up as: too much democracy. Too many people making too many demands of their elected representatives. Onstage, speakers used the shorthand 'The Groups' when discussing this phenomenon. Speaker after speaker blamed 'The Groups' for Democrats' failure to win elections and to govern effectively when they did win them. (Names of the specific Groups in question were rarely invoked on stage, but a recent New York Times op-ed by one of the day's speakers, Democratic operative Adam Jentleson, called out the American Civil Liberties Union, the Sunrise Movement, the Working Families Party, and Justice Democrats as some of the culprits responsible, in his view, for browbeating Democratic candidates into adopting unpopular positions in primaries that Republicans could weaponize against them in a general election.) The blogger Matthew Yglesias flogged this thesis most aggressively in his presentation. To illustrate his point that 'Bad Groups create bad incentives for Democrats,' Yglesias pointed to Democrats' after a Maryland man was illegally renditioned to a Central American supermax prison by accident — some Democrats have traveled to El Salvador to seek Kilmar Abrego Garcia's release and return to the U.S. Besides this being the only moral position one can take on the question of whether the government should be allowed to extrajudicially seize individuals, ship them off to a foreign jail, and refuse to bring them back when ordered by the courts, Yglesias appears to be wrong about this being a politically dangerous position for Democrats to stake out: Media coverage of this case, kept alive by Democrats who continued to raise awareness about it, damaged Donald Trump's image, pollster G. Elliott Morris points out. Approval for Trump's immigration agenda nosedived during the height of the furor over Abrego Garcia's wrongful seizure. While speakers at WelcomeFest generally seemed to agree The Groups' influence was to blame for Democrats' failures, no one seemed to offer much in the way of a contrasting vision for what the party's orienting principle ought to be going forward. Abundance, the airport book that some Dems appear determined to adopt as a policy platform, got only brief attention at the WelcomeFest. Instead of a mission or any one overarching vision, there only seemed to be consensus on the fact that Democrats need to start winning again, by whatever means necessary. The political analyst Lakshya Jain urged reorienting party recruitment efforts to focus on candidates with high 'Wins Above Replacement' statistics. The concept will be familiar to anyone who has read Moneyball, Michael Lewis' book about how the Oakland A's used sabermetrics to identify and recruit undervalued players. Jain's model compares a generic match-up in a particular district with the actual results in an effort to evaluate who overperformed or underperformed expectations for their particular race. To illustrate this point, Jain compared the results of progressive New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's race with that of Janelle Stelson, a candidate who ran in Pennsylvania's 10th district. In his model, AOC, who won her race and outperformed Kamala Harris by six points, underperformed a generic race in her district by two points; Stelson, who lost by one point and outran Harris by four points, overperformed a generic Democrat by nine points. Jain's pitch was that, in the current political environment, which he says is D+6, Democrats have a real opportunity to seize legislative majorities if they focus their efforts on recruiting candidates with high WAR scores — the catch is that these candidates might be unpalatable to The Groups and other party faithful. 'Being very blunt, if we run candidates that D.C. finds appealing, we're probably going to lose. There is an inverse correlation between what you guys all find appealing and what the median voter finds appealing,' Jain told the room. He brought up Blue Dog Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who spoke on a panel with Yglesias and Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Adam Gray (D-Calif.). 'A lot of you may say you find some of Jared Golden's votes to be annoying for a Democrat,' Jain said. 'Well, guess what? The choice isn't between Jared Golden and AOC. The choice is between Jared Golden and Paul LePage. So who would you rather have?' It was an echo of Kerr's opening remarks — 'The choice is Jim Justice or Joe Manchin' — and it's a real question that gets at the heart of Democrats' present predicament. Do Democrats — or Americans writ large — need more candidates in the mold of Joe Manchin, the man single-handedly responsible for torpedoing Democrats' expanded child tax credit, a program that had lifted 2.1 million children out of poverty? Unappealing as the choice is, there's also a high probability that it is a false binary too: Jain claimed in his presentation, 'The base will vote for you anyway… Don't worry about liberal defections.' But if the results of the 2024 election have indicated anything, it's that attitude — the attitude that was also adopted by the Harris campaign — is a losing one: We know that demoralized Democratic-leaning voters who stayed home decided the election. More from Rolling Stone 'We Don't Want Them': Trump Cracks Down on Foreign Nationals Coming to America Sean Penn Criticizes Plan to Remove Harvey Milk's Name From Navy Ship Late-Night Hosts Take Aim at Trump's Feud With Musk: 'Blew Up Faster Than a SpaceX Rocket' Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
