“We tried moving to the left under Biden. … It really helped shrink the party’s appeal,” PPI president and founder Will Marshall told me a few days after the retreat. “What will work in a deep blue district is one thing. What will work in swing states and swing districts is something else altogether.”
PPI’s own polling and focus groups with non-college voters over the last three years showed a more moderate or even conservative outlook on issues like immigration or policing, Marshall explained. That’s why they went to Denver: Marshall and others at PPI believe the key to the party’s future success is to be found in the unique combination of libertarian ideals, progressive programs and pocketbook-focused governance that has become a hallmark of western liberalism. The pragmatic approach, they say, reflects the growing number of unaffiliated voters in the country.
PPI’s plan to take the strategy sessions national has a compelling pedigree: After Democrats’ dismal 1988 election showing — when George H. W. Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis with nearly 80 percent of the electoral college vote — PPI went to the American South looking for answers. Marshall and other PPI strategists held similar sessions that grew into the bones of the influential New Democratic movement. Involved in those strategic discussions was a little-known governor named Bill Clinton.
