The New York Times

“In October, the group behind the centrist Democratic WelcomePAC issued “Deciding to Win,” an analysis of “election results, hundreds of public polls and academic papers, dozens of case studies, and surveys of more than 500,000 voters” that found that “since 2012, highly educated staffers, donors, advocacy groups, pundits and elected officials have reshaped the Democratic Party’s agenda, decreasing our party’s focus on the economic issues that are the top concerns of the American people.””

The Wall Street Journal

“The photo with Soros is emblematic of a larger problem for Newsom, said centrist Democratic strategist Liam Kerr. He said Newsom’s visit in general to Davos shows he is out-of-touch with the voters that Democrats need to win back and that a photo of Newsom “at a fancy conference with a billionaire activist” shows that he is “trending toward fancy elite stuff.” A representative for Soros didn’t respond to a request for comment..”

BOSTON GLOBE

“Admitting the problem is step one. Democrats are losing moderate and conservative voters of all races, are perceived as too liberal, and have an efficient army of groups enforcing unpopular litmus tests.

Step two is learning from the candidates who have been able to win over swing voters. In both parties, successful politicians have taken positions that sharply differentiate them from their own party. Just look at pro-choice Republican Charlie Baker, the former Massachusetts governor, who in 2018 earned more votes than Senator Warren in a deep blue state.

Step three is putting the lessons of these crossover winners into practice. To do that, the moderate proponents of a classic big tent strategy will have to admit to being in their party’s minority and wage an insurgency.”

CNN

“A big part of why we’re in the place we’re in politically is that the people who makeup the professional class of Democratic politics just have very different priorities fromthe average voter,” said Bazelon, an adviser at the centrist Democratic group Welcome.

“The things that emotionally resonate with them most are things like the boat strikes,masked ICE agents in the streets, and threats to the rule of law. But … working-classvoters are focused on their own economic well-being, first and foremost,” Bazelonsaid. As a result, he added, “a big part of the question facing Democrats is: Am I goingto privilege the issues that resonate most with me personally, or am I going to focusmost on the issues that resonate with the average American?”

New York Times

“It’s reflective of a broader problem within the party, which is we are scared of ever making anybody in our coalition upset,” said Simon Bazelon, a Democratic researcher who was the lead author of a different autopsy, called Deciding to Win, that was released by Welcome PAC, a centrist group. “I understand the incentives involved there. But it also limits us in a lot of ways because it means we can’t address difficult questions head on.”

CNN

“Progressives do the hard work of organizing,” said Liam Kerr, the co-founder of Welcome PAC, a group aiming to increase centrists’ influence in the party. “Centrists tend to do the sporadic work of helping candidates win in red districts and then producing the data to say, ‘I told you so,’ to the left.”

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.