Across a conference hosted by the moderate Democratic group Third Way, leaders warned that Democratic candidates risk damaging their political future if the party leans too far left in the 2026 midterms and carries that message forward into the 2028 presidential race.
The remarks came during a two-day, invite-only meeting called “Winning the Middle” in Charleston, where Third Way leaders said their beleaguered moderates want Democrats to take a course correction well before presidential politics speeds up. The conference location, Bennett said, was chosen with South Carolina’s role in Democratic presidential primaries in mind, including the state’s support for Joe Biden in 2020.
Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett described a plan to build a moderate Democratic network that would influence candidates as the 2028 race approaches. Bennett said, “We’re doing it early, and we’re doing it much, much more aggressively than we did last time,” adding that Third Way had “a team in place that is talking every day to the 2028ers,” as the party prepares for its next presidential campaign.
Bennett also said Democrats need to move quickly to socialize ideas so they are “widely shared by the time we get to the main part of their primary cycle,” particularly as Democrats expect a new presidential calendar from the Democratic National Committee to be ready only later.
Former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina offered a sharply conditional outlook. He said Democrats are “going to win” in 2026 because, in his view, they have “one great nominee, and his name is Donald Trump,” a reference to Trump’s electoral weakness. But Messina warned Democrats “are going to lose the presidential election in 2028 if we can’t find an economic message that identifies with most people,” and he added, when asked for the “brutal truth,” “We have no economic message, and if we don’t get one, we’re not going to win.”
Messina’s comments were followed by practical suggestions about how Democrats should present themselves to voters. Joe Walsh, a former Tea Party Republican who became a Democrat last year, told attendees that Democrats can come across as overly academic or elitist, saying, “Democrats come across as like professors, academics, elites — I mean, my God, rip off your freaking sport coat and talk to me.” Walsh said voters were “crying out for authenticity.”
Walsh added that he did not think authenticity required Democrats to copy President Donald Trump’s public style. He pointed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s early primary-state visits, saying Newsom has mocked Trump on social media by imitating Trump’s tone, including “all-caps” messaging. Walsh said, “I think the mimicking and the copying a lot of the Trumpism isn’t the way you’re actually going to reach a lot of folks,” and reiterated that voters are “crying out for authenticity.”
The conference also focused on message wording on economic issues, with some attendees raising their hands when asked how many had worked the word “affordability” into campaign materials. Gabe Horwitz, who leads Third Way’s economic program, said he believed participants were not telling the truth about how widely the term was being used, joking, “I think some of you are lying,” and suggesting the real number was higher.
Melissa Morales of Somos Votantes, a Latino voter and civic engagement organization, urged Democrats to remove “affordability” from their campaign vocabulary. Morales said, “It barely makes sense in English, and it is a nightmare to translate into Spanish, so can we please call it something else?” She added that voters were not looking for “economic theory” but for “a set of everyday solutions,” and she said Democrats should communicate that way to connect with them.
The conference’s central pitch reflected the moderates’ concern that Democratic messaging choices in the midterms could influence how the party performs in 2028—particularly on economic themes—and that waiting until later in the presidential cycle may leave the party without time to adjust.
While the Democratic National Committee’s updated presidential schedule is not expected for months, Bennett said the moderates’ effort is aimed at moving ideas early enough to take hold before the primary season fully begins.