title: "The Wrong Fight: Why Democrats Keep Debating Who They Are Instead of What Things Cost" subtitle: Three candidates won landslides on the same four words. The party responded by arguing about ideology. author: Rebecca Rowan publication: For the Republic date: 2026-02-13

The Wrong Fight: Why Democrats Keep Debating Who They Are Instead of What Things Cost

A democratic socialist who wants city-owned grocery stores in every borough. A moderate who just posted the largest raw vote margin in Virginia gubernatorial history. A Navy helicopter pilot who froze utility rates as her first official act in office.

Three candidates. Three wildly different ideological starting points. One identical result: landslide victories built on the same four words. What does this cost?

Zohran Mamdani won New York City with 50.78% in a three-way race -- the most votes cast in a NYC mayoral race since 1969. Abigail Spanberger won Virginia by more than 15 points, the largest percentage margin since 2009. Mikie Sherrill won New Jersey by 14.4 points, becoming the first Democrat to carry Morris County since 1973.

So naturally, the Democratic Party responded to this evidence by launching a furious internal debate about whether it should be more progressive or more moderate.

I watched the results come in on election night and felt something I hadn't felt since 2024 gutted me: actual hope. And then I watched the party spend the next three months trying to explain it away as proof of whatever faction's priors. That part felt familiar. That part felt like the mission statement meeting.

The Mission Statement Trap

You've seen this movie if you've ever worked at a company in freefall. Sales are cratering, customers are leaving, the product is getting worse -- and leadership responds by scheduling a two-day offsite to workshop the mission statement. The problem isn't the mission statement. The problem is that nobody's talking about what the customers actually want.

The Democratic Party is doing this right now. Call it identity theater -- the compulsive need to resolve an internal ideological question before acting, even when the evidence shows that acting is the resolution. You've seen the cycle. The party loses, factions start pointing fingers, the media frames recovery as a contest between wings, primary candidates pick their lane, donors pick sides -- and the formula that actually won gets buried under the drama, because drama is a better story than "everyone agrees."

The San Francisco Chronicle captured the meta-debate perfectly: "Affordability? Abundance? Aspiration? As 2026 looms, which message will Democrats run with?" The New Democrat Coalition just released a 16-page affordability blueprint explicitly positioned against progressive populism -- whose content is almost entirely about the same kitchen-table costs that progressives are running on. Everyone agrees on the diagnosis. They're still fighting about who gets to be the doctor.

The evidence points to something simpler and more interesting than "pick the right wing." Derek Thompson nailed it: affordability isn't a policy. It's a prompt. A shared orientation toward material reality that lets different candidates answer the same question in whatever way fits their district. The party doesn't need to resolve its identity crisis. It needs to stop having one.

The Prompt in Action

The convergence data shows something the factional debate is designed to obscure.

Spanberger won economy-focused voters by more than 20 points. Sherrill's first act was freezing utility rates -- not issuing a statement about party values. Mamdani ran on a $30 minimum wage, free childcare, and city-owned grocery stores. The DNC's own internal analysis found that pocketbook concerns "overwhelmingly propelled the party's recovery among minority voters." The voter language is telling: "It's not your mortgage, it's your rent. It's not groceries; it's food. It's not utilities; it's heat."

And here's the paradox that proves the thesis. The Democratic Party's brand is at historic lows -- 34% favorable in Gallup (worst since 1992), 27% in NBC (worst since 1990), 18% congressional approval in Quinnipiac. Yet Democrats lead the generic ballot by 5 to 14 points depending on the poll, and hold a 33-point advantage among independents. Only 48% of Democrats approve of their own party's congressional leaders.

Voters are motivated despite the party, not because of it. The brand is irrelevant. The material stakes are everything.

G. Elliott Morris's analysis found that if the 2026 electorate resembles voters who prioritize affordability, it would produce a blue wave 50% larger than 2018. The party just has to talk about the thing voters care about.

The Aspirin-vs.-Surgery Problem

I won't pretend the counterarguments are weak. They're not.

The substance critique. James Carville -- hardly a progressive -- has called for "the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression." The Nation argues that "affordability" without structural ambition is empty branding -- a way for moderate Democrats to offer technocratic tax credits while claiming the same mantle as candidates proposing universal childcare. A Demand Progress/YouGov poll found that 72.5% of Democrats prefer sharp populist messaging over softer "abundance"-style framing.

Look -- the word affordability can absolutely be hollow. If it becomes a slogan concealing pilot programs and means-tested credits instead of structural reform, voters will see through it. The New Democrat Coalition's child care "pilot programs" and Mamdani's universal child care are not the same policy, even if they share the same prompt.

But that's not the argument. Nobody's saying all affordability policies are interchangeable. The argument is that leading with the material concern is what wins elections -- and the debate over how to address that concern is a productive policy fight the party should absolutely have. The useful version of the progressive-moderate debate is "which affordability policies work best?" The useless version is "who are we?"

The cultural filter. Ruy Teixeira and the Liberal Patriot school argue that cultural perceptions function as a filter determining whether voters even hear economic messaging. Research cited by The Liberal Patriot suggests roughly two-thirds of working-class voters think Democrats have moved too far left culturally. The general sentiment from pragmatic Democratic operatives like Pat Dennis of American Bridge is clear: economic populism helps, but it isn't enough on its own to overcome cultural headwinds.

Here's the conflict in me. I get this. Spanberger's affordability message worked partly because she was already perceived as culturally moderate. That's a real scope condition. But leading with economics is the best available strategy for managing cultural vulnerability -- not because it eliminates cultural perceptions, but because it redirects voter attention to terrain where Democrats are strong. Spanberger didn't win by debating "wokeness." She won by making the conversation about grocery prices -- which functionally communicated seriousness without requiring culture-war capitulation.

The 2018 Cheat Code

Democrats did not resolve their identity crisis in 2018 either. They didn't hold a unifying convention or publish a manifesto. They let diverse candidates run on local conditions with healthcare as the shared prompt. Moderates won red districts. Progressives won blue ones. Nobody agreed on Medicare for All versus a public option -- but everyone agreed that healthcare costs too much. The result was the largest midterm wave in a generation.

Affordability in 2026 can function identically. The party doesn't need unity. It needs a shared prompt.

And the 2018 model worked despite Republican attacks -- same as now. Republicans know the affordability convergence is the threat. The NRCC's October 2025 memo outlines a strategy to "weaponize Mamdani" -- nationalizing his democratic socialism as the face of the party and running digital ads in nearly 50 competitive House districts. But Spanberger and Sherrill won their landslides while those attacks were being deployed. The affordability frame isn't a defense against Republican attacks. It's a better offense that forces Republicans to argue against candidates who are talking about grocery prices.

Nine Months

The Democratic Party's greatest risk in 2026 is not picking the wrong ideology. It's spending so much energy on the identity fight that it never gets around to running on the thing that's already working.

The identity debate is a scarcity-mindset trap -- fighting over who gets to define the party instead of building a coalition around what voters actually want. The answer is boringly simple, in the same way abundance politics is boringly simple: build more, cost less, talk about what matters to people's lives. (I know -- revolutionary stuff.)

The Democrats' real identity crisis isn't about who they are. It's about whether they can resist the temptation to fight about who they are long enough to talk about what things cost. Three candidates proved the formula. The party's own data confirms it. Morris's numbers say the wave is sitting there, waiting.

The only question is whether the party will spend the next nine months having the fight that feels satisfying -- or doing the work that actually wins.

Revision Log

Fact-Check Corrections

• RED FLAG FIXED: Changed attribution of the 72.5% populist messaging statistic from "Groundwork Collaborative" to "Demand Progress/YouGov poll" and updated the hyperlink from the American Prospect piece to the Demand Progress primary source.
• Spanberger margin: Changed "15.4 points" to "more than 15 points" to avoid overly precise rounding that inflates the certified 15.36-point result.
• NYC turnout: Changed "highest turnout since 1969" to "most votes cast in a NYC mayoral race since 1969" to clarify the metric (raw votes, not turnout rate).
• PPI 68% figure: Replaced the unverifiable "PPI survey found 68%" claim with a softer attribution: "Research cited by The Liberal Patriot suggests roughly two-thirds of working-class voters think Democrats have moved too far left culturally." This preserves the argument without asserting a specific number that could not be independently confirmed.
• Pat Dennis quote: Replaced the unverifiable direct quote with a paraphrase attributing the general sentiment: "The general sentiment from pragmatic Democratic operatives like Pat Dennis of American Bridge is clear: economic populism helps, but it isn't enough on its own to overcome cultural headwinds."
• SF Chronicle link: Updated from homepage (sfchronicle.com) to the specific article URL.

Structural Changes

• Seeded the "prompt" framework earlier: Moved the Thompson "prompt, not policy" insight into the end of the Mission Statement Trap section, so the reader enters the evidence section already primed for the reframe. The old "A Prompt, Not a Policy" section was retitled "The Prompt in Action" and focuses on evidence rather than introducing the concept.
• Fixed the close: Cut the five consecutive short declaratives ("The formula exists. It's already producing historic margins. The 2026 electorate is primed for it. This isn't wishful thinking. It's pattern recognition.") down to a tighter landing. Kept the final challenge as the single closing beat.
• Removed duplicate tsunami/surfboard metaphor: The metaphor appeared in both the evidence section and the close. Cut from the evidence section; the close now ends on a cleaner note without the metaphor (which was slightly familiar).
• Renamed generic section headers: "They've Done This Before" became "The 2018 Cheat Code." "The Bigger Picture" became "Nine Months." Both are more vivid and personality-laden per the editor's notes.
• Added bridging sentence between 2018 section and NRCC material: "And the 2018 model worked despite Republican attacks -- same as now."
• Cut ~120 words to hit target: Trimmed the Mission Statement Trap examples (cut Warren and Washington Monthly references), tightened the close, and compressed several transitional passages. Final count is approximately 1,500 words.

Voice Adjustments

• Added personal vulnerability: Inserted a moment of genuine frustration after the hook -- watching election night results and feeling hope, then watching the party explain it away. This is the "I watched this happen and it gutted me" moment the editor flagged as the single most important change.
• Added "Here's the conflict in me" moment in the cultural filter response, per the corpus pattern ("the visceral part of me wants war" / "I won't pretend to have been above panic").
• Reworked "mechanism is almost mechanical" passage: Replaced the abstract narration with the conversational "You've seen the cycle" construction, per the editor's suggested rewrite and the corpus parallel ("You've seen the pattern. A damaging story lands...").
• Cut throat-clearing: Removed "Here's the thing the convergence data actually shows" opener. Cut "I'm not going to pretend the counterarguments here are weak. Two of them deserve honest engagement" and replaced with the more natural "I won't pretend the counterarguments are weak. They're not."
• Rewrote "the thesis isn't arguing" passage: Changed from editorialist-speak ("the thesis isn't arguing," "the distinction the critique misses") to direct voice ("that's not the argument," "nobody's saying").
• Cut "I won't dismiss this": Let the honest engagement speak for itself rather than announcing fairness, per the editor's note.
• Cut "This connects to something deeper": Filler transition removed; the zoom-out now happens directly.
• Added parenthetical aside: "(I know -- revolutionary stuff.)" in the close, adding the self-aware humor texture the editor flagged as missing.
• Added register shifts: The piece now moves from data to personal memory to sardonic aside within the first three paragraphs, and the counterargument section shifts from analytical to personal ("Here's the conflict in me") mid-paragraph.

Unresolved Notes

• Pop-culture/experiential anchor: The editor requested at least one more concrete pop-culture or everyday-life image beyond the corporate offsite analogy. The "cheat code" header nods toward gaming culture but isn't a full reference. At ~1,500 words there wasn't room to develop a second extended metaphor without cutting substantive argument. The author may want to add one in revision.
• "Slightly too clean" sentences: The editor noted the draft's sentences are uniformly well-constructed and could use more productive messiness. I added some fragments and mid-thought pivots, but the author should review whether the piece still reads too polished relative to corpus standards.
• Mejia result: Not included per the original draft writer's judgment that there wasn't room at this length without shortchanging the counterargument section. The editor did not specifically request its inclusion.