Every Single Participant in NYT Focus Group Preferred Progressive Candidates Over Moderate Ones | Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/news/focus-group-nyt

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43473370

Feb 18, 2026

The newspaper spoke to 13 Democratic and independent voters including retirees from Indiana and Michigan, working people from states such as North Carolina and Nevada, and an unemployed voter from Iowa. The topic of discussion was the participants’ frustrations with the Democratic Party as it faces the Trump administration and the president’s aggressive deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the country.

“Spineless” was one word a participant had for the Democratic Party when asked to describe it. Another said the party appears “paralyzed” while a 46-year-old Latina woman from Nevada said Democrats in Congress are “sellouts and suckers.”

128 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 29 pts · 185d

DNC: "understood, we will be running the most moderate candidate we can find for the next election"

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 185d

Now Ezra Klein is going to have to work overtime to explain at length why they are wrong.

Auk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 185d

10/06/2026

EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 185d

They'll sell us out as quickly as regular Democrats.

JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 185d (3 replies)

In other news, entitled voters will still not vote to keep a pedophile rapist, commanding a rabid conservative army bent on depriving them of their rights, freedoms and livelihoods, from taking the highest office in the land. Still somehow prefer that to a non-progressive candidate.

ianonavy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 184d

Gee, if only the private corporation with a near monopoly on “progressive” general election ballot lines would hold meaningful, competitive primary elections for the highest office in the land. But no, it’s “tradition” for unelected party insiders to clear the field for demonstrably unpopular incumbents who broke their campaign promise of running a single term. Better to handpick the nominee before voters even get a say.

Look at NYC. Their ranked-choice mayoral primary is competitive, and voters turn out when it actually matters. You can’t blame people for skipping a rigged system that’s failing to produce candidates they actually like. Doing so isn’t gonna lower cost of living or fix the broken US healthcare system, which is what most people are actually voting for when they get the chance.

AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 184d

Ah, "entitled" is new libtard thought-terminating cliché

I_Jedi@lemmy.today · -5 pts · 185d

Of course. The accelerationist cause demands it. According to rubber band theory, there can be no resurgence unless the human species takes huge losses.