New Democrats (United States)
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Template:New Democrats New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues.<ref name="Loewe 2010" /> New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the early-2010s,<ref name="blue-dog-regroup">Template:Cite news</ref> and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.<ref name="vox.com">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="graham">Template:Cite web</ref>
With the rise of progressivism in 2016 and 2020 amidst the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and that of the right-wing populism of Donald Trump,<ref name="Gerstle2022" /> New Democrats began to change and update their ideological positions.<ref name="steinhauer">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="podkul">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="marans">Template:Cite web</ref> Debates over tax cuts on capital gains have been reconfigured to removing caps on state and local tax deduction (SALT).<ref name="Lillis 2024">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Despite expansion of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), even with stricter criteria for CPC representation in Congress, the New Democrats' Progressive Policy Institute (established in 1989) persists into the present day, sponsoring "young pragmatists" at the rechristened Center for New Liberalism, formerly known as the Neoliberal Project, to "modernize progressive politics".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2024, the CPC lost four seats in the overarching House Democratic Caucus, although the number of members in the CPC remained the same. At least two out of nine CPC freshmen planned to also hold seats in the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) as well, joining an additional twenty-two House Democrats who similarly claimed membership in both caucuses. The NDC lost approximately five members, yet gained twenty-three, reestablishing the coalition as the leading Democratic partisan caucus in Congress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Brad Schneider, who spearheaded "plans" and "proposals" for SALT deduction caps as NDC platform planks, is NDC chairperson in the 119th United States Congress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Schneider endorsed Sharice Davids, his former rival for NDC chair, as Honorary Chair of the NDC ReNew Democracy Foundation (distinct from the Renew Democracy Initiative).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the aftermath of the 2024 United States presidential election, New Democrats raised concerns about increasing numbers of CPC members joining the NDC, but did not address the reverse happening to the CPC prior to the election.<ref name="Lillis 2024"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Carville: Democratic Party 'a cracked-out clown car'</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
History
Origins
Template:Modern liberalism US During the 1970s energy crisis, the United States faced stagflation, that is, both increasing inflation and decreasing economic growth.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The 1974 midterm elections, according to historian Brent Cebul, "are remembered for the arrival of the 'Watergate babies' in the House of Representatives, but the New Democrats' first electoral wave was broader and deeper still...some western and northeastern officials like [Michael] Dukakis were dubbed Atari Democrats thanks to their veneration of new, entrepreneurial, high-technology sectors of the economy. This group, which included [Gary] Hart and California Governor Jerry Brown, also sometimes called themselves 'New Liberals' in an effort to signal their support for traditional liberal social values even as they pursued market-oriented and perhaps less bureaucratic ways of governing." Another "primary strand" could be found in "the South, often as self-consciously 'centrist' Democrats. Led by politicians like Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, the southern centrists echoed southern Democrats of the past in their skepticism for targeted welfare or antipoverty programs, and they also looked forward to stimulating the region's post-industrial and 'post-racial' future."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The Watergate Babies and Atari Democrats found a common thread in what historian Brent Cebul describes as twentieth-century "supply-side liberalism", an antecedent to the fiscal ideas of 21st-century "supply-side liberals, or supply-side progressives."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> This ideology, derived partly from their consultations with partisan boll weevils, ultimately proved a fiscal illusion.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Cebul further contends that "Michael Dukakis and Jerry Brown, for instance, both appropriated property taxes to subsidize a given startup company in depressed industrial sectors. This subsidization transformed state tax revenue for public finance into venture capital. Once the first wave of startups achieved normal profit, then the tax burden for additional start-ups would shift from real estate investors and homeowners to the initial companies. Brown and Dukakis also planned on allocating revenue from the new taxable capital to "infrastructure and education." According to Cebul, one of the "mistakes" of twentieth-century "supply-side liberalism", an unwillingness to propose "certain types of progressive regulations along with those subsidies", could be avoided by twenty-first century "supply-side liberals." During the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan Administrations, voter tax revolts and the Volcker recession, coupled with uneven profit thresholds for taxing scaled-up companies, hastened the shift in tax burden to the entire first wave.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Even if absent from partisan politics for one or more election cycles, "supply-side liberals" could and did campaign to reconcile "job and tax generation with the market-oriented ethos of the 1980s" during reelection bids. Once back in office during the early 1980s recession in the United States, Dukakis and his cohort incrementally diverged from "supply-side liberalism" as it operated prior to the tax revolts. Beginning in 1982, for instance, Dukakis altered the role of his Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation (1978) from tax revenue distribution to "broker[ing] deals" between "high-tech companies and Boston-based venture capital firms." This gradual change diminished his own role in the ensuing Massachusetts Miracle, a cornerstone of his campaign during the 1988 United States presidential election. Conversely, 1980s changes later became key tenets of New Democrat platforms.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute
After the landslide defeats by the Republican Party led by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance.<ref name=autogenerated2>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=autogenerated1>Template:Cite book</ref> The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Prominent Democratic politicians such as Senators Al Gore and Joe Biden (both future vice presidents, and Biden, a future president) participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacies for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination.<ref name="Hale, Jon F 1995">Hale, Jon F. "The Making of the New Democrats." Political Science Quarterly 110, no. 2 (1995): 207-221.</ref> The DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be "simply posturing in the middle", and instead framed its ideas as "progressive" and as a "Third Way" to address the problems of its era. Examples of the DLC's policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions.<ref name="Hale, Jon F 1995"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1989, the "New Democrat" label was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy.<ref name="phil 1989">Template:Cite news</ref> That same year, Will Marshall founded the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) as a think tank to formulate a new common platform for Yellow Dogs, Atari Democrats, and Watergate Babies. In 1990, the DLC renamed its bi-monthly magazine from The Mainstream Democrat to The New Democrat.<ref name="rae 117">Template:Cite book</ref> The PPI, in conjunction with Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and the DLC, subsequently introduced tentative precepts collected in a New Orleans Declaration. By 1992, "New Democrats" had become more widely associated with this declaration, as well as Democratic partisans who entwined presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson's variant of Rainbow/PUSH with the Sister Souljah moment.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Aspirations for "supply-side liberalism" had been rebuffed by voters and state auditors alike. According to Cebul, the rechristened "New Democrats" espoused "a reflexive veneration of the market as the essential underwriter of social progress". They first sought to accelerate capital and money coursing through a post-industrial economy. The PPI and DLC forecasted financial deregulation and tax cuts as avenues to facilitate the expansion of scaleup companies invested in computational and internet technology. These companies would provide the venture capital necessary to pave over ailing industrial regions with post-industrial start-ups. The role of government was to remove any perceived obstacles. Heeding the lessons of tax resistance, the New Democrat think tank and leadership council also aimed to reduce the federal deficit and interest rates, while expanding the mortgage-backed security industry and credit market for a real estate sector that had roundly rejected property taxes. The voters who had stymied "supply side liberalism" would become a New Democrat vanguard.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="University of Pennsylvania Press">Template:Cite book</ref>
Bill Clinton, the DLC chairman who referred to the PPI as his "idea mill", faced a peculiar dilemma. He had to somehow circumvent voter preconceptions of financial deregulatory laws and capital gains tax reductions as antithetical to "social progress", while concurrently accepting the duty of the largest party plurality, namely to advance the mid- to late 20th-century Democratic partisan goal of "social progress." Cebul and additional scholars conclude that the DLC as well as PPI, and Clinton more specifically, offered a possible solution: cast "the poor as unrealized entrepreneurs and impoverished communities as untapped 'new markets' ", ostensibly combining financial deregulation with claims for "social progress" in syncretic politics. After the 1988 elections that perpetuated the Reagan era, a deemphasis on purity tests did not seem such a controversial goal for a new national Democratic Party leader. In February 1992, Andrew Kopkind first described the attempt to reconcile "social progress" with financial deregulation as "the ideology of Clintonism."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The New Covenant
Template:Main Historians such as James D. Boys contend that Clinton’s "grand strategy, grand rhetoric" of "courting blue-collar voters" resulted in a series of 1991 speeches to the DLC and his alma mater Georgetown University on a possible "New Covenant" platform. Clinton pledged " 'a New Covenant of change that will honor middle-class values...and make America work again.' " In the context of global commerce, Clinton warned that protectionism was " 'a fancy word for giving up; our New Covenant must include a new trade policy that says to Europe, Japan, and our other trading partners: we favour an open trading system, but if you won’t play by those rules, we’ll play by yours.' " The "New Covenant" was Clinton's attempt "to position his candidacy in a broad historical narrative. It was not, however, an expression that captured the public’s imagination", in contrast to Donald Trump's later "Make America Great Again."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Clinton advisor Benjamin Barber credited William Galston for coining the "New Choice" slogan and for reconfiguring it as a "New Covenant." Galston, an NDC alum, focused on "rhetoric, strategy, and vision." Galston formulated the slogan to define "the president's early interest in public–private partnerships" and an approach to "responsibility" that wedded voters to delegates. According to Barber, Galston invoked "covenant" to connote "American Puritanism" and the "social contract tradition that was part of America's founding." The phrase held "iconic value for the early Clinton agenda", despite its "short shelf life."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Less than a year after declining to continue as Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich reported that "the two main accomplishments of the first year were passage of the first budget" and the North American Free Trade Agreement. By the second year, "almost sixty percent of the public now approves of the job B is doing as president, if polls can be believed." During a dinner with Bill Clinton, Clare Dalton, and Hillary Clinton, the latter two decried an imbalanced ratio of CEO incomes to wages of " 'loyal workers' " and renounced corporations that defined " 'downsizing' " as " 'middle-class' " layoffs. Bill Clinton replied that he "shouldn't be out in front on these issues. I can't be criticizing [corporations].' "<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</reF>
John Nichols, writing in The Progressive during the Presidency of George W. Bush, further argued that the 1992 presidential campaign team engaged in a "more populist 'people first' rhetoric...Clinton's 1992 scramble away from DLC language came as no surprise." Stan Greenberg, for example, noted that Clinton's approval ratings did not increase " 'until he rejected the advice of conservatives of the party' and began to adopt populist and distinctly non-DLC rhetoric." New Democrats "did much to define the first two years of the Clinton Presidency", which, according to Nichols, contributed to a Republican Revolution precipitated by "the failure of millions of working class voters to go to the polls." In the aftermath, "DLC cadres" distanced themselves from NAFTA, adopted remnants of "New Covenant" rhetoric, and "formed the New Democrat Network, a well-funded group dedicated to electing and reelecting corporation-friendly Democrats." As a result, the DLC "expanded the House membership after both the 1996 and 1998 elections."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Additional critics attribute the 1994 losses to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and the Clinton health care plan of 1993.<ref name="Kwak 2019"/>
In late September 1992, Joan Didion observed a shift, rather than "failure", in meanings ascribed to a "New Covenant" by the Clinton campaign. She underscored those "who wanted to dance with the Gores, join the club' " as pressured to critique the seemingly " 'brain-dead policies in both parties', most noticeably their own." The way to a " 'New Covenant' " was, by the last month of the campaign, " 'not conservative or liberal, in many ways it is not even Republican or Democratic.' "<ref>Template:Cite journal (Didion's article was also published in her 2001 book Political Fictions)</ref>
One of the last public references to a "New Covenant" was the 1995 State of the Union Address. By the second half of his first term, even while the First Lady struggled with her proposed healthcare plan, "New Covenant" came to signify various counterpoints to Congressional Republican bills and platforms, most notably the Contract with America. Clinton, increasingly acting on counsel from Dick Morris, had begun to entertain new frameworks for political economy, society, and culture, reconceiving the New Democrat "social progress" dilemma and the DLC approach to political thought. He sought de jure and de facto advisors that would, in turn, move beyond syncretic politics and attempt to shape a new Democratic Party, in a new way.<ref name="nyt 19920928">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="nyt_11-11-1992">Template:Cite news</ref>
Presidency of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton became the Democratic politician most identified with the New Democrats due to his promise of welfare reform in the 1992 presidential campaign, his 1992 promise of a middle-class tax cut and his 1993 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> The campaign occurred shortly after the end of the Cold War, at a time when faith in capitalism and internationalism were at their height, providing an opportunity for Bill Clinton to focus on domestic policy. New Democrat successes under Clinton, underpinned by the writings of Anthony Giddens on the duality of structure in "social systems", maintained a total unity of opposites that became the hallmark of the Third Way. New Democrats subsequently aligned with Joseph Schumpeter's innovation economics and creative destruction as revolution, as well as concomitant criticism of intellectual property laws and almost all political purity tests, in order to sustain their budding framework for a post-industrial political economy.<ref name="Rowman & Littlefield Publishers">Template:Cite book</ref>
New Democrats are often regarded to have inspired Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and his policies within the Labour Party as New Labour, as well as prompting the continental conflation of Third Way approaches to social democracy with previous notions of democratic socialism. The two were often used interchangeably by political scientists and fostered popular conceptions of democratic socialism as a social-democratic variant or wing of libertarian socialism.<ref>Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars, 2003, Template:ISBN.</ref>
Historian Quinn Slobodian argues that the "big tent of neoliberalism" principally advances the belief that "the state plays an important, proactive role in encasing the market from challenges to the market order, and often in rolling out new policies that produce more market-friendly outcomes and realities." The "big tent" can include multi-caucus politicos described as libertarian Democrats, but also "these radical libertarians, who are more often at the margins, who think that the state can be abolished altogether...they are within the world of the neoliberal religion but constitute a kind of radical sect within it — it’s hard to know where to put them, the same way that one wouldn’t know where to put breakaway sects of Christianity or Islam when they take issue with the mainline version of the ideology."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Clinton presented himself as a New Democrat candidate and continued to appeal to white middle-class voters who had left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. He promised to "end welfare as we know it."<ref name="Alterman 2012, p. 557">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Until 2016 and even after, the Third Way defined and dominated notions of centrism in U.S. partisan politics.<ref name="Hale, Jon F 1995" /> Political analysts such as Kenneth Baer further that the DLC embodied the spirit of Truman–Kennedy era Democrats and were vital to the Democratic Party's resurgence after the failure of the George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis presidential campaigns.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Bipartisan Bill Proposals and Acts (1992-2000)
New Democrats dialectically adopted Republicans proposals and platforms during the campaigns for the 1992 congressional/state elections and 1992 United States presidential election. As a result, particularly after the 1994 midterm elections when Republicans regained control of Congress, they signed legislation endorsed by Republicans, although not all Democrats supported this move. Both the Defense of Marriage Act and Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWOA) became law three months before the 1996 United States elections. It was in his 1996 State of the Union Address that Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over."<ref name="Kwak 2019">Template:Cite magazine</ref> After Clinton vetoed two versions of the bill that ultimately became PRWOA, "Svengali-like advisor Dick Morris---upon whom Clinton had grown increasingly dependent, politically and psychologically, in the aftermath of the 1994 debacle---insisted that a third veto could cost him his reelection in 1996."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Legislation that received bipartisan support under President Clinton included:
- The North American Free Trade Agreement, a core international agreement signed during the presidency of George H. W. Bush without NAALC/NAAEC and required Congressional approval for implementation. It is still largely in effect via the succeeding USMCA and proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
- The Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on openly gay people serving in the Armed Forces (repealed in 2010).
- The Defense of Marriage Act that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 and repealed in 2022, the latter with support from 24% of Congressional Republicans.
- The Religious Freedom Restoration Act federal religious discrimination statute.
- The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, sometimes referred to as the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Legislative examples of bipartisan authorship included:
- 1996 Defense of Marriage Act: Bob Barr (R-GA) (Republican introduction)
- 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act: John Kasich (R-OH) with ideas and provisions from Clinton's 1994 proposal
- 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act: John Kasich (R-OH) with ideas and provisions from New Democrats
- 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: Phil Gramm (R-TX), Jim Leach (R-IA), and Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-VA) with ideas and provisions from New Democrats
Congressional Democrat voting percentages for the foregoing examples:
- 1996 Defense of Marriage Act: 64% Democratic Representatives support and 72% Democratic Senators support
- 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act: 50% Democratic Representatives support and 53% Democratic Senators support
- 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act: 80% Democratic Representatives support and 82% Democratic Senators support
- 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: 75% Democratic Representatives support and 84% Democratic Senators support
The Clinton Administration, supported by congressional New Democrats, was responsible for proposing and passing the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which increased Medicare taxes for taxpayers with annual incomes over $135,000, yet also reduced Medicare spending and benefits across all tax brackets. Congressional Republicans demanded even deeper cuts to Medicare but Clinton twice vetoed their bills. The Clinton Administration in turn taxed individuals earning annual incomes over $115,000 but also defined taxable small business earnings as high as $10 million in annual gross revenue, with tax brackets for "high-gross incorporated businesses" beginning at that number. According to the Clinton Foundation, the revised brackets and categories increased taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers within these new brackets,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while cutting taxes on 15 million low-income families and making tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses. Small businesses and taxpayer classifications were reconfigured by these new tax brackets.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Clinton's promise of welfare reform was passed in the form of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Prior to 2018, critics such as Yascha Mounk contended that Clinton's arguments for the virtues of "negative" notions of "personal responsibility", such as the New Orleans Declaration's "individual responsibility" propounded within DLC circles during the 1980s, stemmed more from Reagan's specific conception of "accountability" than any "positive notion of responsibility".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gerstle2022" />Template:Rp Additional critics distinguish the New Democrat idea of "personal responsibility" from arguments over the extent of limitations on government, if any, in platforms that advance social responsibility. The 1996 United States presidential election, Dick Morris' advice to relegate Hillary Clinton to lecturing on the global promotion of microcredit (argued by Claremont McKenna College historian Lily Geismer),<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> partisan compromises over this act, conflicts within the Democratic Party, as well as the act's multivalent consequences, all contributed to deliberations over passage and execution of the PRWORA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Democratic partisan criticism of the first Clinton Administration, as well as the formation of the Blue Dog Coalition, particularly in response to proposals and actions by the First Lady, followed 1994 congressional New Democrat losses in the southeast and west coast.<ref name="Obama last of the new Democrats">Template:Cite web</ref> Clinton's reassertion as a New Democrat during the 1996 presidential elections, and passage of the PRWORA, contributed to the founding of the New Democrat Coalition, reaffirming Clintonian Democrats as New Democrats.<ref name="University of Pennsylvania Press"/> As of August 2023, 23% of the New Democrat Coalition have become simultaneous members of, or declared an intention to vote for more proposals by, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. A number of these delegates, most notably Shri Thanedar, faced backlash from pundits and constituents alike, as evidence surfaced of alleged involvement in post-2016 attempts to rally neoconservatism. Despite the controversy, certain delegates were reelected in 2024, including Thanedar.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Presidency of Barack Obama
In March 2009, Barack Obama, said in a meeting with the New Democrat Coalition that he was a "New Democrat" and a "pro-growth Democrat", that he "supports free and fair trade", and that he was "very concerned about a return to protectionism".<ref name="Obama: 'I am a New Democrat'">Template:Cite web</ref> Many Obama cabinet picks and House and Senate Democrats were New Democrats. From 2007 to 2011, the New Democrats were the leading swing bloc in the House, and were the main authors of the legislation on bailouts and financial regulation of derivatives. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which gave rise to New Democrats but that since the 2000s had lost some of its influence,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and the DLC closed down in February 2011 due to financial issues;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> however, New Democrats remained influential through the Third Way organization,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and New Democrats proved key swing votes in subsequent years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> During his presidency, pundits debated if Obama moved to the left,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> citing the lack of the DLC's influence from its heydays, or whether, forced by Republican gains in Congress, he doubled down on triangulation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Obama Administration espoused "free and fair trade" ideas. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) proponents postponed TPP drafting after Obama became President, only to commence formal Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in 2010, after Executive Office (EO) disclosure of an endorsement, albeit with Obama's proposed revisions on, for instance, intellectual property. Early drafts of Executive Order 13609 principally by Cass Sunstein, "Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation", buttressed the TPP deliberations with the premise that "inadequate cooperation and consultation" had been caused by "excessive red tape" for "businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises operating near the border."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the final draft, Obama advisors such as Sunstein applied the Executive Order to all such "enterprises", in the absence of regional and tax bracket classifications, operating within "North America and beyond."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Sunstein later proposed thirty-two criteria for defining such policy frameworks as "liberal", especially to advance "the right to private property" (not always totally devoid of a "progressive income tax") and to remedy the vagaries of what he perceives as groupthink.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2015, the Obama EO released "The Economic Benefits of U.S. Trade", a signatory framework for prospective drafts of the TPP and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). According to the Obama EO, free trade "help[s] developing countries lift people out of poverty" and "expand[s] markets for U.S. exports".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Throughout Obama's tenure, approximately 1,000 Democrats lost their seats across all levels of government.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Specifically, 958 state legislature seats, 62 House seats, 11 Senate seats, and 12 governorships,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with a majority of these elected officials identifying as New Democrats. Some analysts, such as Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight, believe this was due to the changing demographic shift, as more Democrats identified as liberal in 2016 than moderate.<ref name="fivethirtyeight analysis">Template:Cite web</ref> Consequently, many pundits believed that Obama's tenure marked an end of the New Democrats' dominance in the party, although the faction still remains an important part of the party's big tent.<ref name="vox.com"/> Obama signed the draft Trans-Pacific Partnership, yet subsequently declared his "Economic Benefits of Free Trade" framework as "dead" prior to the lame-duck session of Congress, in anticipation of bipartisan opposition to TPP ratification.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Decline in the 2010s and 2020s
Historian Gary Gerstle argues that support for neoliberalism declined in the United States in both parties in 2016, with both Trumpism and progressivism opposing central tenets of neoliberalism. For example, Trump and Sanders both opposed the Transatlantic Pacific Partnership during the 2016 United States presidential election. President Trump then refused to sign any draft TPP, precluding further revisions to garner U.S. participation.<ref name="Gerstle2022" /> In contrast, Trump initially indicated willingness to continue TTIP negotiations with substantial changes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, the TTIP dissolved into trade disputes between the European Union (EU) and the Trump Administration. Trump's approach to curbing the pandemic became the focus of EU delegate concerns, superseding the unresolved trade conflicts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Despite this, New Democrats have continued to be a large coalition within the big tent of the Democratic Party.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign
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Ahead of the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, many New Democrats were backing the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, the wife of former New Democrat president Bill Clinton, who served as a senator from New York during the 2000s and as Barack Obama's Secretary of State during the early 2010s. Originally considered to be an expected nominee, Clinton faced an unexpected challenge from Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders, whose campaign garnered the support of progressive and younger Democrats. Ultimately, Clinton won 34 of the 57 contests,Template:Efn compared to Sanders' 23, and garnered about 55 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, commentators saw the primary as a decline in the strength of New Democrats in the party, and an increasing influence of progressive Democrats within the party.
Ahead of the formal announcement of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published the Democratic National Committee email leak, in which DNC operatives, many of whom were New Democrats, seemed to deride Sanders' campaign,<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> and discuss ways to advance Clinton's nomination,<ref name=":6">Template:Cite news</ref> leading to the resignation of DNC chair, and New Democrat member, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other implicated officials. The leak was allegedly part of an operation by the Russian government to undermine Hillary Clinton.<ref name=":10">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Although the ensuing controversy initially focused on emails that dated from relatively late in the primary, when Clinton was nearing the party's nomination,<ref name=":6"/> the emails cast doubt on the DNC's neutrality towards progressive and moderate candidates.<ref name=":52">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> This was evidenced by alleged bias in the scheduling and conduct of the debates,Template:Efn as well as controversial DNC–Clinton agreements regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions.Template:Efn Other media commentators have disputed the significance of the emails, arguing that the DNC's internal preference for Clinton was not historically unusual and didn't affect the primary enough to sway the outcome.<ref name="WaPo">Heersink, Boris (November 4, 2017). "No, the DNC didn’t 'rig' the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 8, 2018.</ref><ref>Houle, Dana (July 25, 2016). "No, the DNC Didn’t Rig the Primary in Favor of Hillary". The New Republic. Retrieved March 8, 2018.</ref><ref>Holland, Joshua (July 29, 2016). "What the Leaked E-mails Do and Don’t Tell Us About the DNC and Bernie Sanders" Template:Webarchive. The Nation. Retrieved March 8, 2018.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The controversies ultimately led to the formation of a DNC "unity" commission to recommend reforms in the party's primary process.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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Presidency of Joe Biden
The winner of the 2020 United States presidential election was Joe Biden, who served as vice president under Barack Obama. Although Biden has not explicitly self-identified as a New Democrat, Biden identifies as a moderate Democrat and opposes some progressive positions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During his presidency, Biden has broken with New Democrat policies on some issues, such as spending and free trade.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections, 13 Democrats lost their seats. All thirteen Democrats that lost their seats had won in the 2018 mid-term elections. Of those 13 members, 10 of them were New Democrats. During the 117th United States Congress, the New Democrat Coalition lost its status as the largest ideological coalition in favor of the more left leaning Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC was founded in 1991 but only began catching up and eventually surpassed the New Democrat Coalition in the 2010s.<ref name="Zengerle-2022">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="marans" />
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been characterized by some as the end of the post-Cold War era and liberal internationalism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Clinton was elected in 1992 shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when New Democrats were at the peak of their influence. As of December 2023, Biden has largely maintained Trump's protectionist trade policies, and has not negotiated any new free trade agreements. Labor unions, an important constituency for Biden's re-election, opposed removing Trump's tariffs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The PPI pressured the Biden Administration to revoke Obama's "dead" position and join the TPP.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Instead, the Biden Executive Office negotiated and initiated the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). The 2024 United States presidential election, as well as partisan dissent in participating member-states, forestalled further implementation and ratification of the IPEF.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Biden withdrew from the presidential election on July 21, 2024.<ref name="Klassen-2024">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2020s
The defeat of Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election prompted a variety of responses from think tanks and political journals. William Galston of the Brookings Institution, for example, argued that "by refusing to explain why she had abandoned the progressive positions on crime, immigration, health care, and climate change, she blurred the public's perception of her", while opening "the door to the Trump campaign's charge that she was a closet radical."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Politico argued that Democratic Party candidates who did not chiefly focus on Trump resistance politics ultimately ran successful campaigns. After the elections, New Democrats further "urged the party to de-emphasize cultural issues", especially "transgender policies."<ref name="Reisman, Kapos & Otterbain 2024">Template:Cite web</ref>
According to a post-election New York Times and Ipsos poll (2025), 94% of Republican respondents and 67% of Democratic respondents opposed transgender athletes in women's sports. Lori Trahan, a New Democrat Caucus member, told the New York Times that policymakers across the partisan aisle had raised "legitimate concerns" over limits to transgender rights in the United States, but criticized these Republicans for further "injecting themselves into the issue."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Conor Lamb advised Democratic Party candidates to instead elucidate their fiscal platforms for voters without college degrees, including those who faced barriers to universal access to education for students.<ref name="Reisman, Kapos & Otterbain 2024"/> On the other hand, according to New York Times estimates, Trump made "larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American and young voters", irrespective of college degrees, than he did among "white voters without a college degree."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
A majority of American adults over the age of 25 do not possess college degrees. Democratic Party support among white voters with college degrees has led to geographic concentration, limiting electoral competitiveness in regions with lower educational attainment. Of the jurisdictions won by Kamala Harris in 2024, all but New Mexico—a plurality-Hispanic state—exhibited above-average levels of educational attainment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="2024 Exit poll">Template:Cite news</ref>
In the area of foreign policy, Irie Senter, writing for Politico in January 2025, observed that the pro-Palestine movement tended to concentrate its political advocacy on the executive branch, viewing Democratic administrations as more amenable to adjusting U.S. policy toward Israel. Senter noted that while support for Israel remains broadly bipartisan, Republican politicians have been more vocal in their criticisms of the pro-Palestinian movement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In July 2025, the Majority Democrats PAC-SuperPAC was founded, consisting of a supermajority of NDC members and disaffected former CPC members. The chair of this hybrid political action committee, Jake Auchincloss, is not currently affiliated with the NDC.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A month later, Jerusalem Demsas founded The Argument, featuring columnists and contributors who promoted effective altruism, philanthrocapitalism, the politics of abundance, and a "post-neoliberalism." Dylan Gyauch Lewis, writing for The American Prospect, had earlier renounced these movements as "neoliberalism rebranded", pointing to interviews where later columnists for The Argument expressed preferences for the NDC over the CPC. A minority of contributors explicitly opposed the floating signifier "neoliberalism", even while maintaining a trenchant criticism of forecasted CPC aims as well as the actions of what they refer to as Bernie Bros. Political analyst Ron Brownstein likened the situation to the "Clinton era", while Barack Obama recommended studies on the politics of abundance for summer 2025 reading.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In attempts to wade between pundits who dismissed these Democrats as rebranded neoliberals, and politicos who considered them a threat to the NDC, additional political commentators have described the contingent as "New Liberals." The designation explicitly harkened back to an early label for the Watergate Babies and their reframing of "supply-side."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Ideology
Template:Centrism US According to Dylan Loewe, New Democrats tend to identify as fiscally moderate-to-conservative and socially liberal.<ref name="Loewe 2010">Template:Cite book</ref> Columnist Michael Lind argued that neoliberalism for New Democrats was the "highest stage" of left liberalism. The counterculture youth of the 1960s became more fiscally conservative in the 1970s and 1980s but retained their cultural liberalism. Many leading New Democrats, including Bill Clinton, and Gary Hart, started out in the George McGovern wing of the Democratic Party and gradually moved toward the right on economic and military policy.<ref name="Up from Conservatism">Template:Cite book</ref> According to historian Walter Scheidel, both major political parties shifted towards promoting free-market capitalism in the 1970s, with Republicans moving further to the political right than Democrats to the political left. He noted that Democrats played a significant role in the financial deregulation of the 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Gerstle and anthropologist Jason Hickel contended that the neoliberal policies of the Reagan era were carried forward by the Clinton Administration, forming a new economic consensus which crossed party lines.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gerstle2022" />Template:Rp According to Gerstle, "across his two terms, Clinton may have done more to free markets from regulation than even Reagan himself had done."<ref name="Gerstle2022" />Template:Rp
Historian Michael Kazin argues that New Democrat fiscal and monetary ideas marked a divergence from U.S. fiscal variants of Keynesian public spending. Keynesian economics aimed to stimulate individual and group consumption of goods and services in a given economic sector, until monetary circulation crossed a predetermined sector threshold for contraction in economic liberalism. This U.S. iteration of Keynesianism, coupled with budget deficits, began during the latter half of the Second New Deal and became a hallmark of early Cold War liberalism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In contrast, Clinton's "the era of big government is over" marked a more global shift to a new neoclassical synthesis, culminating in the post-war displacement of Keynesianism with creative destruction and various approaches to the service-commodity goods continuum in a post-industrial economy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
New Democrat monetary ideas aligned with easy money policy and the Greenspan put from the Reagan Administration, resulting in Clinton's reappointment of Alan Greenspan as Chair of the Federal Reserve. For "moral capitalism", Kazin favored U.S interpretations of New Keynesian economics in Progressive Caucus platforms, albeit with a more diversified consumer base.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Five weeks after the 2024 elections, CPC chair-elect Greg Casar dated "serious discontent" with the Democratic Party to both New Democrat and neoconservative government policies and the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as to fiscal grievances by Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, as well as Barack Obama's 2010 endorsement of the Volcker Rule, evinced a trend away from this New Democrat shift and concomitant tax brackets. During the COVID-19 pandemic and everything bubble, fiscal and monetary stimuli, as well as targeting in monetary policy to curb inflation, came under public and scholarly scrutiny. Debates focused on whether pandemic policymaking should be regarded solely as "COVID-Keynesianism", with more flexibility in deficit spending, or an advancement in the connected, yet distinct, trend. The latter would add a sustained expansion of Financial regulatory authority to address any adverse effects of windfall profits, substantial price gouging, and artificial scarcity on the US economy.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The 2021–2023 inflation surge has called into question the efficacy of increased federal spending and deficits.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Criticism
Template:See also New Democrats have faced criticism from progressives and liberals further to their left, as well as the broader American Left. In a 2017 BBC News interview, Noam Chomsky said that "the Democrats gave up on the working class forty years ago".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the aftermath of his 2020 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders stated that "the Democratic Party has become a party of the coastal elites,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> folks who have a lot of money, upper-middle-class people".<ref name="the_hill">Template:Cite web</ref> Political analyst Thomas Frank asserted that the Democratic Party began to represent the interests of the professional class rather than the working class.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
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The Democratic Leadership Council, the organization that produced such figures as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman and Terry McAuliffe, has long been pushing the party to forget blue-collar voters and concentrate instead on recruiting affluent, white-collar professionals who are liberal on social issues. The larger interests that the DLC wants desperately to court are corporations, capable of generating campaign contributions far outweighing anything raised by organized labor. The way to collect the votes and – more important – the money of these coveted constituencies, "New Democrats" think, is to stand rock-solid on, say, the pro-choice position while making endless concessions on economic issues, on welfare, NAFTA, Social Security, labor law, privatization, deregulation and the rest of it.{{#if:|
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Critics of "neoliberal" political economy additionally targeted elements of "creative destruction", especially those perceived as contributing to post-industrial monopolies.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Beginning in 1992, economists Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt (and then Joel Mokyr) argued that nominal rigidity or "sticky wages" did not always warrant Keynesian monetary stimulation during economic downturns. They even questioned previous interpretations of John Maynard Keynes as solely blaming "sticky wages" for perpetuating recessions. Crucially, this model reduced the role of Keynesian (temporary) public spending to remedy involuntary unemployment. The model, however, simultaneously promoted antitrust policies to curb the "rents" (profits crossing a monopolization threshold) produced by the so-called "business-stealing effects" in revolutions of "creative destruction." Endogenous growth continued due to innovative reconfigurations of goods and services "stolen" from previous firms. Antitrust policymaking, firm investments, and limited government subsidies for research, education, and development fueled an innovation economy that, in turn, sustained growth and revolutions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Intellectual property played a role in research and development, albeit a constrained one, and not at the expense of "business-stealing" and "creative destruction."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The economists added that free trade partnerships produced spillover effects. These effects, while previously maligned as "neoliberal", pushed multinational businesses into contending with foreign regulatory apparatuses. All three economists were not involved in the Clinton Administration, although all three engaged in collaborations and debates with New Democrat economic advisors. Howitt in particular shifted to entertaining elements of Alan Greenspan's discretionary policy for monetary concerns if ad hoc policies facilitated "creative destruction."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The "business-stealing effects" underpinned this iteration of "creative destruction", as it did most such variants. The effects similarly undermined rationale for more domestic tax policies and regulatory efforts. At the same time, a certain degree of financial regulations and taxes were pivotal in sustaining growth. As of 2025, the model has not found its way into partisan planks for U.S. political economy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016), Frank was one of the few analysts who foresaw that Donald Trump could win the 2016 U.S. presidential election, attributing it to New Democrats alienating working class voters.<ref name="Cohn 2016">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nate Cohn of The New York Times stated that Trump had made larger gains with racial minority voters than with white voters without college degrees compared to the 2012 U.S. presidential election, with the Democratic Party's gains being mainly just among white voters with college degrees.<ref name="Cohn 2016"/> Democrats also lost further ground with white voters without college degrees, costing them crucial Rust Belt states in the 2024 elections.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Journalist Michael Cuenco argues that New Democrats have caused the Democratic Party to lose voters without college degrees, who make up the majority of voters.<ref name="Cuenco 2024">Template:Cite web</ref>
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After the 2024 elections, The Nation editor D. D. Guttenplan noted that Kamala Harris had been "cozily campaigning with the Cheneys", which alienated "as least as many potential voters as it attracted."<ref name="Guttenplan 2024">Template:Cite news</ref> Likewise, John Nichols observed both Bernie Sanders and Shawn Fain, despite outward appearances, desperately attempting to persuade the Harris campaign "to return to the economic populism—and clear appeal to working-class voters—they had embraced in Chicago (only to abandon it in favor of attacks on Trump's character once the big donors weighed in)."<ref name="Guttenplan 2024"/>
Elected to public office
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Presidents
- Bill Clinton<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> (former)
- Barack Obama<ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Joe Biden<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
Vice presidents
- Al Gore<ref name="Hale, Jon F 1995"/> (former)
- Joe Biden<ref name="Washington">Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
Senate
- Evan Bayh<ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Mark Begich<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Jacky Rosen
- Jeanne Shaheen
- Maria Cantwell<ref name="sndc 0208">NDN: Senate New Democrat Coalition Members (August 2002)</ref>
- Tom Carper<ref name="sndc 0208"/>
- Bob Casey Jr.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Max Cleland<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Hillary Clinton<ref name="sndc 0208"/> (former)
- Kent Conrad<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Chris Coons<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- Joe Donnelly<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (former)
- Byron Dorgan<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Al Gore<ref name="Hale, Jon F 1995" /> (former)
- Maggie Hassan<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Heidi Heitkamp<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- John Hickenlooper<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>
- Tim Johnson<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Doug Jones<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- John Edwards (former)
- Ted Kaufman<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Amy Klobuchar<ref name="sndc 0208"/>
- Mary Landrieu<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Claire McCaskill<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (former)
- Bill Nelson<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="sndc 0208"/> (former)
- Barack Obama<ref name=":4" /> (former)
- Mark Pryor<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Ken Salazar<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Debbie Stabenow<ref name="sndc 0208"/>
- Jon Tester<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Mark Warner<ref name=":2" />
- Tim Kaine
- Patty Murray
- Catherine Cortez Masto
- Ben Ray Luján
- Richard Blumenthal
- Elissa Slotkin
House of Representatives
- Pete Aguilar<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Colin Allred<ref name="117th Congress members"/> (former)
- Jason Altmire<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Brad Ashford<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Cindy Axne<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Ami Bera<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Don Beyer<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Lisa Blunt Rochester<ref name="117th Congress members"/> (former)
- Brendan Boyle<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Anthony Brindisi<ref name="117th Congress members"/> (former)
- Anthony Brown<ref name="117th Congress members"/> (former)
- Shontel Brown<ref name="WilliamsBrown">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Julia Brownley<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Cheri Bustos<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Lois Capps<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Salud Carbajal<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Tony Cardenas<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- André Carson<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Troy Carter<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Sean Casten<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Joaquin Castro<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Gerry Connolly<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Jim Cooper<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Lou Correa<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Jim Costa<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Joe Courtney<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Angie Craig<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Charlie Crist<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Jason Crow<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Joe Crowley<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Henry Cuellar<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Sharice Davids<ref name="117th Congress members">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Susan Davis<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Madeleine Dean<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- John Delaney<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Suzan DelBene<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Val Demings<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Eliot L. Engel<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Veronica Escobar<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Elizabeth Esty<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Lizzie Fletcher<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Bill Foster<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Vicente Gonzalez<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Josh Gottheimer<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Gwen Graham<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Josh Harder<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Denny Heck<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Jim Himes<ref name="114th Congress members">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Steven Horsford<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Chrissy Houlahan<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Sara Jacobs<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Bill Keating<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Derek Kilmer<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Ron Kind<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Ann Kirkpatrick<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Raja Krishnamoorthi<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Ann McLane Kuster<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Rick Larsen<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Brenda Lawrence<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Al Lawson<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Susie Lee<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Elaine Luria<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Tom Malinowski<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Sean Patrick Maloney<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Kathy Manning<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Lucy McBath<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Gregory Meeks<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Joe Morelle<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Seth Moulton<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Patrick Murphy<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Donald Norcross<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Beto O'Rourke<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Jimmy Panetta<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Chris Pappas<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Scott Peters<ref name="114th Congress members"/><ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Ed Perlmutter<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Dean Phillips<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Pedro Pierluisi<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Mike Quigley<ref name="114th Congress members"/><ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Kathleen Rice<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Laura Richardson<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Cedric Richmond<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Deborah K. Ross<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Raul Ruiz<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Loretta Sanchez<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Adam Schiff<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Brad Schneider<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Kurt Schrader<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- David Scott<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Kim Schrier<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Terri Sewell<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Mikie Sherrill<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Elissa Slotkin<ref name="117th Congress members"/> (former)
- Adam Smith<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Darren Soto<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Greg Stanton<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Haley Stevens<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Marilyn Strickland<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Norma Torres<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Lori Trahan<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- David Trone<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Juan Vargas<ref name="114th Congress members"/>
- Marc Veasey<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Filemon Vela Jr.<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Jennifer Wexton<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Susan Wild<ref name="117th Congress members"/>
- Nikema Williams<ref name="WilliamsBrown"/>
Governors
Former governors
- Evan Bayh<ref name=":5" /> (former)
- Mike Beebe<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Phil Bredesen<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Steve Bullock<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- John Carney<ref name="114th Congress members"/> (former)
- Tom Carper<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Roy Cooper<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> (former)
- Jim Doyle<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Mike Easley<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (former)
- Dave Freudenthal<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Christine Gregoire<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Maggie Hassan<ref name=":1" /> (former)
- Brad Henry<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- John Hickenlooper<ref name=":0" /> (former)
- Ted Kulongoski<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Terry McAuliffe<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Ronnie Musgrove<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Janet Napolitano<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (former)
- Gina Raimondo<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> (former)
- Brian Schweitzer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Kathleen Sebelius<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
- Earl Ray Tomblin<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (former)
See also
- Blue Grit
- Labor Right
- New Labour
- New Democrat Coalition
- Problem Solvers Caucus
- Radical centrism
- Rockefeller Republican
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
External links
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