Lots of people are reaching out asking about the David Hogg news yesterday. Here’s Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times:
Less than three months after the young political activist David Hogg was elected as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, he is undertaking a new project that is sure to rankle some fellow Democrats: spending millions of dollars to oust Democratic members of Congress in primary elections next year.
The plan is to “intervene in primaries in solidly Democratic districts as part of a $20 million effort to elect younger leaders and to encourage a more combative posture against President Trump.”
“This is going to anger a lot of people,” Mr. Hogg said of his efforts, which he began to brief allies, some lawmakers and party officials on in recent days. He predicted “a smear campaign against me” that would aim to “destroy my reputation and try to force me to stop doing this.”
Pragmatic Democrats should not try to destroy Hogg as an individual. They should simply beat him where he’s wrong.
Eleven Thoughts
Hogg embodies both the promise and peril of the activist response to Trump—talented, ambitious, relentless, and well-intentioned. But he also falls prey to the polarizing incentives of modern politics: amplifying ideological extremes and emphasizing conflict that pulls the Democratic ecosystem further left.
His very American saga captures the darkness of our current political era. A school shooting. An impassioned, hopeful movement for change that rose in the hearts of millions of Americans. And from the right-wing, a disturbing, trollish, conspiracy-minded campaign. He’s been subject to a lot of ugly stuff, and seems to have responded to it better than 99% of the general youth population would have.
We disagree with a lot of what Hogg has said (Defund the police, Abolish ICE, etc) and some tactics in prior endeavors (starting a liberal pillow company to mirror MAGA) and by his PAC for fundraising (mass list-buying for email fundraising that directs small-dollar donors to investments other than beating Republicans) and expenditures (mostly supporting safe-seat progressives; opposing the candidate best positioned to win in WI-03). However, we see nothing unethical in anything he has done in either fundraising or spending. Such fundraising and spending approaches are common. As we’ve previously noted, “Hogg is the symptom of what ails the Democratic Party, not the core problem.” After our prior writing on him was picked up widely, we were surprised by the false allegations against him that came in. Hogg is probably right to worry that he’ll be smeared.1
Is a $20 million fund to primary Democratic incumbents a good idea? There’s a thousand ways to say “it depends”.
We’d rather spend $20 million beating Republicans than beating Democrats.
But it’s a free country (for now) and if people want to spend $20 million beating Democrats, it is good to be very public about that goal so donors know what they’re funding. So kudos to them for being so transparent.
On February 9, we wrote “Most critiques of our Hogg opinion have been progressive doublespeak: now is not the time for infighting … when it comes from the center.” It took less than ten weeks for that double standard to become reality. When centrists create conflict, it is deemed bad for the party. When progressives create conflict, it is deemed healthy.
One interesting thing about the power of outside money is that the highest ROI is often on money that is *not* spent. Let’s say we started a PAC called Peanut Butter Jelly PAC, put $10 million into it, and declared that we would support candidates in safe Democratic seats who ate a PB&J live on Instagram. Both Nancy Pelosi and her primary challenger would be highly incentivized to go on Instagram and eat a PB&J. There’s little downside, other than their time, and if only the other candidate does it that could be a big problem. So now our Peanut Butter Jelly PAC got exactly what we wanted, and didn’t have to spend any money. The political science term is the “Iceberg Theory of Campaign Contributions” - most of the power is under the water. This has been proven out with primaries in particular, as bipartisan researchers from Brookings and R Street have demonstrated that “even the threat of a primary alters behavior in Congress.” Hogg is building power to make people eat PB & J live on instagram (or protest outside of USAID with Chuck Schumer, or go to El Salvador to “fight Trump”, etc).
Does Hogg have a point about age? Actuary tables show that the odds of a 75 year old American male dying in the next two years is 8.2%, or about 1 in 12. The odds of a 40 year old woman dying in the next two years is 0.23%, or 1 in 400. Last week in the House, Democratic vacancies due to death “proved decisive on a budget that unlocks the door for Republicans to make trillions in tax/spending changes.”
The most important near-term implication of the $20 million would be incentivizing Democratic incumbents to do dumb stuff to appease activists which could make Trump relatively more popular.
The most important long-term implication is trying to replicate the 2018-2020 mistake of focusing on what happens in Democratic primaries (exciting young people running on left-wing platforms) instead of general elections (pragmatic Democrats beating Republican). Because that could mess up the 2028 primary.
Beat the model, don’t destroy it
The warning sign in the article is the axis on which these primary challenges will be waged, which sounds like Combative Non-Centrism:
while Mr. Hogg said the 2026 efforts would not be based on ideology, he did say that some younger challengers were likely to run to “the right” of incumbent Democratic lawmakers — and that those challengers would not garner his group’s support. “That is not who we are looking to support,” he said.
The article includes two validators for Hogg’s $20 million fund to beat incumbent Democrats: teachers union president Randi Weingarten and College Democrats president Sunjay Muralitharan, who advanced activist views on student debt and Biden’s needed to be more pro-Palestinian to turn out young voters.
This is setting up a dynamic similar to the last Trump midterms, when progressive primary challengers built a narrative that Democrats should go hard left. This narrative won out over the (correct) view that it was centrist Democrats in swing seats that won back power from MAGA, and led the 2020 primary down a disastrous path that turned off independents before pragmatic Democratic primary voters chose the most moderate option.
Centrist Democrats should not destroy Hogg, or focus on beating back his tactical approach. Hogg’s PAC is not explicitly focused on moving the party to the left - and has at times supported moderates. But the impact will likely be moving the party away from the median voter. For those who think that’s bad, the focus must be on strengthening an alternative community focused on winning general elections.
The “Beat Democrats” approach won the narrative in 2018.
Our “Beat Republicans” team has to win in 2026.
People alleged Hogg had inappropriately used DNC email lists to fundraise for his PAC. While we were displeased that his PAC fundraising noted his DNC role, there was never any evidence for the social media allegations that leveraged any DNC resources (which we rebutted on social media and directly to reporters). Ours are strategic disagreements, not ethical questions.
The mere presence of Hogg in the party is counterproductive for Democrats.