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Two of those Trump-district winners shared exciting news in The Washington Post this morning:
Two Democrats in Congress who flipped Republican-held seats in 2024 plan to debut a pledge for their party’s candidates that acts as a rallying cry for centrists, calling for a “politics of persuasion over purity” and declaring that “we are capitalist, not socialist.”
The pledge is a direct rebuke to the party’s leftward tilt as democratic socialists such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) capture the party’s energy and activism.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) and Rep. Adam Gray (D-California) said they will announce the pledge Wednesday afternoon at the center-left conference WelcomeFest, and hope to get candidates up and down the ballot to join them in signing it. As Democrats wrestle with their identity heading into the midterms and 2028 presidential race, the effort marks moderates’ latest bid to assert themselves.
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The pledge originated with a newly formed centrist group called Promise to America. Felix Frisch, the 20-year-old director, worked on the campaigns of his father, Adam Frisch, a Democrat who came close to unseating Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) in a red-leaning district in 2022.
“I was shocked at the gap between the lessons that I learned … and the unwillingness to listen to leaders like Rep. Gray and Rep. Suozzi who actually win,” Felix Frisch said.
Frisch said he began working on the pledge with several other young people “frustrated with the Democratic Party and where it was going” and then approached Suozzi and Gray about it.
You may remember Felix from last year’s WelcomeFest, which he managed to tremendous growth from the inaugural gathering in 2024.
Learn more at ThePromiseToAmerica.com and tune in to WelcomeFest from 10:15am-5:00pm EST today!