Dear friends,
2025 began on an anxious note, as America’s most polarizing president ever returned to the White House vowing to wreak vengeance on his political opponents. As the year ends, however, our democracy is displaying its recuperative powers. There’s been a public backlash against this president’s retrograde economic policies and aberrant personal behavior. And the sweeping gubernatorial victories of Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey last month suggest a growing public appetite for a pragmatic center-left alternative.
With your help, PPI has spent the last year laying the political and intellectual groundwork for a center-left revival. We’ve commissioned intensive opinion research to better understand the motivations of non-college voters. We’ve convened strategic “New Directions” dialogues across the country showcasing a rising generation of political leaders. And in keeping with our core mission, we’ve developed innovative ideas to help those leaders win and govern effectively.
For example, we launched an American Identity Project to focus Americans on the shared beliefs that unite us rather than tribal identities as our country prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence next year. We’ve also launched an exciting new project on space policy, which has important commercial and national security dimensions. PPI also joined forces with the Tony Blair Institute to create a new international dialogue called “Reinvigorating the Center-Left.” Our Reinventing America’s Schools project published a “New Compact for Educational Excellence” to reverse the slide in student achievement in our public schools.
In addition, we continued to develop a new economic offer for working Americans focused on raising skills and lowering living costs; highlighted the impact of growing economic concentration in the delivery of health care; documented the damage tariffs have done to the nation’s economy; developed a framework for energy and climate policy based on energy abundance and innovation; and offered radically pragmatic proposals for restoring fiscal discipline in Washington.
Our plans for 2026 include a strong focus on making government work better, and honing a new PPI blueprint for defending America and repairing relations with our key friends and democratic allies around the world.
