We’ve got a new report out today, which you can read at deciding-to-win.org
has the details in Semafor:Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.
The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” and “fighting climate change” while not caring about “securing the border” or “lowering the rate of crime.”
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“Deciding to Win” is a major addition to the library of Where Dems Went Wrong literature. Democrats are anticipating a decent off-year election for the party; it’s favored to win back the governor’s office in Virginia, hold the New Jersey governorship, and get California voters to wipe out five Republican-held congressional seats via referendum.
That would build on the Democratic optimism created by their special election wins and strong margins this year.
Welcome’s response: Don’t get cocky. Democrats’ newer coalition is wealthier, more educated, and turns out far more easily than MAGA’s — but in the meantime, it keeps losing ground with less affluent voters …
Deciding to Win is a postmortem with a plan, and a call to action.
At June’s second annual WelcomeFest, more than 600 people gathered under the theme Responsibility To Win. Naturally, press coverage - and social media attacks - on our events focus on Senators, Representatives, presidential candidates, big donors, high-profile media figures, think tank leaders, etc.
But for Democrats to win again, we need something deeper.
That piece ended with a stark warning: “Democrats need to wake up, because right now they’re sleepwalking into disaster, with no plan to avert it.”
We now live in that disaster, and getting out of it will require significant changes - and an infusion of clear-eyed new talent like Simon.
As the acknowledgements section of Deciding To Win shows, Simon has been advised on this project by many Welcome partners - practitioners, renowned researchers, and our country's most insightful politicos. Like WelcomeFest, it’s a project by, from, and for a wide range of partners.
It’s especially for the dynamic winning candidates we seek to amplify, and the emerging candidates who must win the middle for Democrats to regain power. This message could not be more important, and we need it to get through clearly.
As
wrote recently:I’ve truthfully been slightly underwhelmed with 2026 candidates, frustrated that many of these candidates – who are required to win over swing and Republican voters to win – are still championing the resistance-type, Kumbaya rhetoric that doesn’t substantively differentiate from the current unpopular Democratic Party brand.
The report’s title comes from a Nancy Pelosi quote: “Winning an election is a decision. You make a decision to win and then you make every decision in favor of winning.”
A focus on winning does not mean abandoning values, as our Win The Middle slate candidates demonstrate. Winning starts by listening to voters, and supporting candidates who can translate their values into power.
Deciding to Win aims to provide the most comprehensive account to date of why Democrats lost and what our party needs to do to win again. It argues that since 2012, a class of highly educated staffers, donors, advocacy groups, pundits, and elected officials have reshaped the Democratic Party’s agenda, shifting our party’s emphasis on issues that aren’t top concerns for most Americans.
We hope you read the report (link). Let us know if you’re interested in a briefing or a hard copy. And please share it with anyone who you think may be the next Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, or the next
. We need many more of both to grow this community focused on winning majorities, reducing polarization, and governing well.PS You can start by sharing Simon’s thread on X.
PPS Join
& Simon for a 3pm Substack Live today for a discussion of Deciding to Win.