Washington Post

“Centrist Democrats don’t only recalibrate the party to where the voters are, they also provide voters with the nuance that’s needed for people to see the Democratic Party as something other than the toxic brand that it’s become,” said Lauren Harper Pope, the co-founder of WelcomePAC, a centrist political organization that supports Democrats in Trump-won congressional districts. “When are we going to prioritize the ideologies, the values, the vision, the sentiments of the people who are running in places that we wouldn’t necessarily even have a Democrat in office if they were not this type of Democrat?”

Politico

Former Rep. Ben McAdams is being touted by Welcome PAC, which backs more moderate candidates over progressives, for what is expected to be a newly created district, according to an email obtained by POLITICO.

“Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. But it’s usually the best clue we’ve got,” says the fundraising email, which was expected to be distributed to Democrats nationwide on Friday. “Ben McAdams is a superstar.”

Bloomberg

Lauren Harper Pope, co-founder of the centrist Welcome PAC, which helps elect Democrats in Trump-won districts, is trying to change party messaging. “Talking about Trump all the time is incredibly lazy,” Harper Pope said in an interview with Bloomberg Government. “When voters hear people talk crap about Trump, that’s what they expect from Democrats. That’s not what we’re trying to do.”

Washington Post

The most comprehensive and clear-eyed entrant in that debate comes from the center-left group Welcome, which just produced a report called “Deciding to Win.” Its trio of authors, all veterans of Democratic politics, lead with the bad news for their party: The public increasingly perceives Democrats as too liberal. That isn’t a matter of flawed messaging. The party, the authors show, really has moved left on multiple issues since. Even harder for many Democrats to accept, no doubt, will be the report’s evidence that the public thinks Republicans moved toward the center during that same period (although President Donald Trump has altered that perception since resuming office).

Vox

Welcome’s report has already resonated with many of the Democratic Party’s leadership. And if Bazelon’s analysis proves persuasive to Democratic insiders, it could shape the trajectory of the party’s 2028 presidential primary — and thus, the future of American democracy.

Puck News

This is the prevailing theme of Deciding to Win, an almost yearlong research project released this week, authored by Bazelon and backed by Welcome PAC. The newish group is loudly demanding Democrats cut the cord with left-wing activists who, over the last decade, have pushed the party to say and do things that repel normie voters and the multiracial working class. The project has backing, and input, from a constellation of bold-faced Democrats who have been urging their party to moderate certain positions and return to the kind of big-tent, middle-class, anti-corporate messaging that helped Barack Obama win in places like Iowa, Ohio, and Florida in 2012, and transformed Bernie Sanders into a movement messiah in 2016.

Politico

Centrist Democrats have a plan for their party to win again: Talk more about the economy and less about democracy. Reject corporate interests and ideological purity tests. Keep the progressive policies that are popular — like expanding health care and raising the minimum wage — and moderate on issues like immigration and crime.

Those are among the takeaways laid out in an expansive report Monday from WelcomePAC, which supports center-left candidates, on how Democrats can rebound from last year’s electoral wipeout in 2026 and 2028.

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.”

The Dispatch

“Our intraparty opponents can inflict way more pain, very quickly, on a wide range of people,” WelcomePAC co-founder Liam Kerr told The Dispatch. “These activists—who don’t need to spend any time thinking about winning swing districts—have nothing better to do than text each other and get all whipped up if any Democrat gets out of line.

The New York Times

There is growing interest in Welcome PAC, a centrist Democratic group founded in 2021 that has contributed to moderate House Democrats like Jared Golden, Mary Peltola and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Slate

The Democrats who love to infuriate their own party were all smiles at their big gathering in Washington. It was easy to see why.