Mark Halperin warned Democrats on Fox News Thursday about the party’s future trajectory.
During an appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Halperin discussed the growing divide within the party, where the extreme left wing holds the energy, while the more moderate faction struggles to assert itself. Halperin warned that the party’s increasing leftward shift presents a major challenge for Democrats aiming to win elections in the coming years.
“If you are a Democrat who wants to win elections rather than lose them, it’s a big problem. I don’t know who’s going to prevail, but I bet on the left right now,” Halperin said.
While political parties often experience ideological struggles, the current divide in the Democratic Party is severe, Halperin added.
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“Look, parties go through this, where there’s the extreme weighing, it has the energy, the more moderate wing says we are going to win elections running communists and socialists,” Halperin told host Jesse Watters.
Halperin said that the moderate wing of the party lacks both the infrastructure and the resolve to stand up to the far left, leaving the party vulnerable to a more radical agenda. (RELATED: Left-Wing Firebrands’ Massive Fundraising Hauls Leave Vulnerable House Dems In The Dust)
“But this is different because the party is so far to the left, and the folks in the center don’t have the infrastructure or the ideas or the cojones to stand up to the extreme wing,” Halperin said. “We will see what happens in the midterms and the next presidential [election]. There’s a lot of humor to it, but it’s deadly serious.”
Gallup polling from February shows that 45% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents prefer the party to adopt a more moderate stance. Despite many Democratic voters calling for a shift toward the ideological center, most Democratic lawmakers continue to embrace left-wing policies that seem to alienate voters.
Nearly half of Democrats favoring moderation reflects dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration, which pushed one of the most left-wing policy agendas in U.S. history. While just over a third of Democrats supported moderation at the beginning of Biden’s term, Gallup has noted an 11-point increase in favor of moderation since the GOP gained control of Washington.
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