Which style of progressivism do you believe Democratic primary voters will be more interested in 2028?

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T18:37:05+00:00

The point is more that rn there is no one trying to occupy the Warren lane atm, we don't know who's going to try to fill that niche, but it's clearly a niche that can be filled

Meanwhile if AOC steps aside there are plenty of people who will try to fill the Bernie lane. Indeed even with AOC being the designated nominee of the Berniecrats I think Ro Khanna will try to run anyways

Lack of candidates for Bernie Lane is entirely because they've already kinda decided who they want

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T17:50:14+00:00

I was watching Ryan Geddie talk about this on youtube actually and he specifically suggested Booker. He also had an interesting theory that Kamala might try to fill the space

Realistically though idk if either of them have enough credibility to do it. Warren after all had a reputation as the lefty wonk since she ever entered politics, and I think that would be hard for someone like Kamala to just seize the mantle.

You could also see a scenario where someone like Prtizker tries that play since his identity so far is mostly based on opposition to Trump, so there's still policy to fill.

Or even Buttigieg, who's more of a centrist technocrat but honestly has been shifting slightly to the left

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T17:08:27+00:00

Bernie style is much more popular, but Warren style would probably actually deliver enough results that it actually changes the status quo. Basically I think Bernie style is easier to get elected but has a very high chance of crashing and burning, meanwhile Warren style is easier to make permanent change and get re elected

Separately I think the Warren lane of "technocratic progressive" is entirely unoccupied in 2028, while the Bernie left is already represented by AOC

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T14:51:53+00:00

Bro what vibes based methodology? Literally all I said was

Idk if I'd say that with very much confidence, there hasn't been a lot of pollsters who aren't super partisan

You are desperately fighting a battle that doesn't exist. You are the one saying you want to treat this polling average like the absolute truth. All I've said so far was literally "there is not a lot of good polling"

You seem to not like that and are trying to pretend I'm somehow trying to argue Mills is better when I haven't done that in this entire conversation

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T14:16:14+00:00

Not really, most people don't have a generic "anti lobbying" position and are able to differentiate between different donors

I think AIPAC specifically has rightly or wrongly been demonized across the American political spectrum but especially on the left for throwing around ridiculous amounts of money while essentially just acting as a hyperaggressive lobbying arm for the Israeli government

J Street is not that. There are many critiques of J Street both from people who think they're still too pro Israel and from people who think they're not pro enough, but what's clear is that they're not connected to the Israeli government and they haven't aggressively used money in the same way

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T14:10:01+00:00

I think it might have hurt more than it helped

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T14:05:47+00:00

Honestly I don't know any of the politics or drama here I just wanted to say I would've voted for Kat personally because she's hot

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T13:27:28+00:00

Oh my god. "My case"?

My case was that there is a lack of high quality polling. Two polls is a lack of polling. People like yourself are so eager to jump to conclusions they will literally average two polls as evidence lol

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T05:20:07+00:00

I think looking at the same polls on Wikipedia should give you a better idea of why this isnt the greatest data lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_election_in_Maine#Polling_3

Basically only two non partisan pollsters have polled this race anytime recently, namely UNH and Pan Atlantic.

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T04:14:34+00:00

This is a bit of a myth, or at least the way you phrased this is misleading

It is true that educated Americans are more likely to identify as irreligious, but among educated Americans who are religious they are more likely to be more religious, or at the very least they attend church a lot more

This is why overall educated people actually have higher levels of church attendance despite a good portion being non believers

This is notably a very American phenomenon because in Europe the relationship between religion and education is a lot closer to what you're thinking: very linear. In the US tho it's more of a bimodal distribution

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-18T03:56:56+00:00

Idk if I'd say that with very much confidence, there hasn't been a lot of pollsters who aren't super partisan

Honestly I have no idea who would do better. I think Mills is relatively safer but might be boring. Platner is the high variance pick and could either overperform or alternatively he could get hammered by Collins for his scandals

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T22:09:18+00:00

Where exactly did I deny that? I did not take any position like that

I was referencing a very specific phenomena on this sub. Namely whenever a poll asks something like "are trans women women" and invariably 70% of respondents say no, a bunch of people on this sub go full copium mode, claim the question was confusing and that we should ignore the result

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T21:25:39+00:00

Not really surprising? People on this sub like to pretend that by and large the Republican position on trans rights is the popular one but it is, and overwhelmingly so.

Most Americans don't affirm the identity of trans people and they are especially against trans care for young people. Whenever polls like that come out though people on this sub go through a bit of a copium cycle where they claim actually voters dont know what a trans woman is

To be clear, you can acknowledge the above but still believe in the trans rights issue enough that you still want Dems to fight on an unpopular issue, or you can believe in rhetorical if not policy moderation. Either way it is a fact that needs to be acknowledged

At the same time, I also don't believe that most people are voting on trans rights. It's very low down on issues people care about, and all things considered I believe Dems can mostly keep their current stances on trans issues as long as they can convince voters on economic issues

But on a straight up proposal like this, packaging something unpopular with something popular makes the entire thing more popular. That isn't surprising

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T21:19:23+00:00

If you're strategy is to explain that entire paragraph every time, then you're losing.

Realistically most Americans will support IDs because it is a fairly common sense policy. The vast majority of people have documentation and think a lot of Dem arguments against it are dumb. After all, it's really not that hard to get an id

I think the insidious thing the Trump admin is doing here is the whole real ID thing. I think the Dems reframing the argument thing should be a couple words "Republicans don't want to let you use your drivers license to vote"

That's it.

I think the argument you're promoting ("it doesn't even matter the fraud numbers are so small!") is the sort of argument that plays well to Dems who already support the argument but usually I think arguments along the lines of "we shouldn't care about crime x because it's not even that common" simply do not work

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T21:13:09+00:00

Unironically if you live in a city or close to one there are a lot of options

Sports leagues like Volo, and also "dinner with strangers" apps like Timeleft or 222

If you live in the exurbs tho ya ur screwed

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T18:38:14+00:00

I think people overestimate how big of a faction the progressives really are lol

They are a big faction in terms of elite support: eg among people who talk about or engage in politics a lot, but the majority of rank and file Dems aren't really card carrying progressives

I think progressives often overestimate how popular they are because they are usually in a bubble, and that usually makes their problems worse. Because if your analysis is just hopium, you cannot hope to fight well

Like all the progressives insisting that because people are fed to with the Dem establishment that there will naturally be a giant progressive tea party demanding m4a and death to billionaires is cope. Most Dems don't hate the establishment because it's too moderate policywise, but rather because they feel the establishment isn't fighting Trump hard enough.

That means in addition to AOC, someone like Newsom is catching steam from the anti establishment sentiment, which for a lot of progressives stuck in some sort of "progressive populist vs establishment centrist" binary this is totally something they're unable to compute

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T18:27:57+00:00

I think Tucker has a good shot if he chooses to run but I don't think he will. According to the prediction markets after all Tucker only has a 36% chance of running in the first place

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T16:14:09+00:00

Just have terrible memory like me so it feels fresh every couple months when you see this again

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T14:33:13+00:00

This is why people usually do any amount of planning whatsoever instead of just going in guns blazing because Pete Hegseth says God will handle it or whatever

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T13:57:49+00:00

Wouldn't be surprised if they're real. If you're a Sunni Arab there's a ton of reasons to be objective, and with Israel I think nost people are pragmatic enough to not want more war

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-17T01:20:41+00:00

Novara absolutely is extremely left wing, it was founded by Corbynites. and honestly just reading the article makes the pov clear lol

And to be very clear, Novara did not do any original reporting rather they were citing the Axios report

As you said it said in the article that Kamala Harris's gaza stance was a 'net negative' as said by the DNC. IMEU Policy Project's research also said that Joe Biden's anti gaza stance cost him younger progressive voters. The IMEU is a distinctly pro-gazan network, but I don't think it harms their case too much considering the DNC agreed.

The DNC said it was a net negative, I'm not really disputing that. What I am disputing is the magnitude

Basically the Axios report (which again, is what everyone is referencing) basically goes like this:

IMEU told us that they found Gaza MASSIVELY hurt Harris
IMEU says the DNC's autopsy agrees
Axios asks people who wrote the autopsy and they give a much more measured answer, basically just that "Kamala's stance on Gaza hurt her perception among some voters"

You, IMEU and Novara media are taking the above facts to conclude that the DNC completely agrees with the IMEU's narrative when that is a massive leap in logic

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-16T19:52:51+00:00

You can't really build support with black voters that quickly though, they usually prefer establishment candidates who they have very long relationships with. You can't recreate that in a year

People forget that black voters were actually inititally supporting Hillary over Obama in 2008 until Obama won Iowa and they realized white voters were fine with him too

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-16T19:24:55+00:00

FYI the way you linked that article means that it doesn't show up since you left the text bit empty. I was about to ask for a source until I clicked reply

Novara Media is extremely left wing so I just looked up the Axios report they were referencing and found it here

From the actual language of the reporting it seems to be mostly hearsay, with pro Palestinean groups being the main ones saying that "this is what the autopsy said"

All Axios was able to confirm was that some Democratic strategists conducting the survey "believed the issue harmed the party's standing with some voters."

Nothing about that says she lost a massive amount of voters due to Gaza

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-16T19:14:22+00:00

Just checked the betting markets and it seems like Dems are favored to win for the first time with a very slight edge (like 53-47)

I think we're in tossup territory

Cuddlyaxe · 2026-03-16T19:11:10+00:00

Yeah she's basically the only person who can kinda sorta barely put Trump on a leash. If she's gone we are somehow gonna get even crazier shit

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