They Advertised As Moderates. Let’s See What Happens.
Mainstream media isn’t focusing on Democrats running as moderates across the South, so here are some words on that
As a Texan, I was forced to watch an untold number of political ads this year. And for every ad, I got fifteen text messages. As the results of this election seemed groundbreaking, I consumed a fair bit of media coverage, searching for the “why”.
Here in Austin, we have many whys. Republicans have treated Austin as a punching bag for so long, it’s almost a given we will vote against them. They take 50% of our school taxes for the state budget they control, send state troopers into our city, pass laws dictating how we must spend on the police (the small government and anti-union party?), etc., etc. However, the latest Republican gambit of taking over the Austin ISD really riled people up. Our public schools may not be the best in the nation, but they are community schools and we really are doing our best with the 50% of funds the Republicans leave us with. I have no doubt even Republican Austinites with school-age kids voted for Hinojosa to keep the “small government” party from taking over our local schools.
But that’s just my local community, and this is a big state, and the South is a large area, and there are many hot button issues. Pardons for sale, deportations to countries people have never even been to, Florida swamp prisons, scrubbed Epstein files, high gas prices, a war no one wants, etc. Lots of reasons to be upset. And lots of articles on these reasons and more already exist. Lots of narratives. What I do not see much of, or really any at all, is the Southern Democrat platform that did so much winning. From what I can tell, the Democrats in the South ran as… moderates. In all those Talarico and Hinojosa ads this fall, I didn’t see a “we’ll take your guns” ad. I didn’t see a pro-choice ad. I didn’t see a wealth tax ad. I didn’t see a minimum wage ad. I didn’t see any ad to make me think this Talarico guy has anything in common with Bernie Sanders, AOC or Elizabeth Warren. He might as well be named Joe Manchin based on his fall ads. Perhaps his campaign website has progressive positions. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t visit it. What I do know is his fall TV ads, of which I saw a bazillion, were not telling me about how progressive he is.
I watched Talarico’s Jimmy Kimmel interview, only because Trump’s FCC threatened ABC, and banning it made me curious. In that interview, he didn’t say he was going to take your guns. He didn’t say he was going to raise the minimum wage, he didn’t say we are going to implement wealth taxes, he didn’t talk about single payer healthcare. He sure sounded like a moderate Democrat to me.
I used Google to search “democrats won because they ran as moderates”, and there aren’t a lot of articles, but there are some.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/11/06/the-blue-wave-was-powered-by-moderate-democrats
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/moderates-made-democratic-majorities
What’s interesting to note here is the more progressive candidates underperformed expectations. The blue wave appears to be a direct result of putting up candidates that appealed to the middle. How moderate are they, really? I don’t know. But we’ll find out.
I fear that the progressive left is taking this as a validation of their political views. Assuming that the South is now ready for gun control, pro-choice rights, wealth taxes and single payer healthcare. Maybe it is, but that was not the platform presented in ads on TV to voters this fall. I’ll be fascinated to see what these new senators and governors attempt. My guess is if they try to go too far left before 2028, they might not ever get anything done. If instead they stay true to their platform and focus on corruption, the Iran war and tariffs raising the cost of goods, they might consolidate this power.
P.S. I wrote this on Friday the 6th, but had not gotten around to publishing it yet. Then today Ray Dalio dropped a note on his thoughts, so I’ll leave you with a quote from him: “I do think that it’s noteworthy and very important that most of the Democrats who got elected in the swing states appeared almost indistinguishable from moderate Republicans, so to call them “Democrats” and to describe the split as between Democrats and Republicans is overly simplistic. Most of the Democrats who got elected in previously “red” states look nothing like the hard left Democrats (e.g., the Democratic Socialists of America) even though they also go by the name of Democrats.”