Moderates Take Capitol Hill

By Steve Israel

After Tuesday’s historic blue wave swept Democrats across the country into power, a post-midterm narrative has emerged that the coming Democratic majority will look like a scene from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Zohran Mamdani’s zombie army will descend on Capitol Hill. Communist lairs will sprout in House office buildings, outfitted with the finest Soviet-era brutalist furniture alongside new oat-milk latte stations for this kinder, gentler generation of revolutionaries. Before long, a hardleft ideology once confined to the dreams of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will take over Washington.

The narrative is cinematic. But it overlooks two crucial dynamics in the new Congress.

First, the size of the Democratic majority will have a moderating influence because the Democratic leadership won’t need to rely on a small number of hard-core members for every party-line vote, starting with the election of the speaker. Republicans have already shown us how a small group of die-hards can bring down the House: In 2023 the Freedom Caucus used a handful of members to disrupt the Republican agenda, going so far as to put Kevin McCarthy through the torture of 15 ballots before he grabbed the gavel, only to be ousted less than nine months later. They exploited a mar-gin of only four votes. But Hakeem Jeffries’s majority is projected to be as many as 83 seats. He’ll have the room he needs, and I suspect he’ll negotiate accordingly, with one strategic imperative in mind: Now that we have the majority, how do we keep it?

Second, the largest and fastest growing bloc within the House Democratic Caucus isn’t the hard left. It’s pragmatic, realistic Democrats with an agenda to improve life for the broadest coalition of Americans. It resides in a group you may know little about. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the New Democrat Coalition.

They are the clear majority-makers of this Congress and, by definition and self-description, they are moderates. A group willing to find common ground on contentious issues. A group that can organize and mobilize around an economic agenda built on innovation, entrepreneurship, fairness and growth. Their ranks even include conservative Blue Dogs and members of the Progressive Caucus.

I should know. I was one of them. A defiant, New Dem moderate. And our ranks are growing quickly.

When I served in Congress, there were 43 members of the New Democrat Coalition. Today, there are 114—already more than half of the current Democratic Caucus. And it’s about to get bigger. As of writing, New Dems have won at least 23 red-to-blue seats—the districts that flipped the House—and are on track to win all their 22 front-line races. When the counting is done, New Dems will have the largest ideological group in the caucus and the entire House.

It’s true that in this blue tsunami of an election, the hard left has increased its ranks as well. DSAbacked representatives in the House have doubled their numbers, from four to eight. So-called Justice Democrats will add members as well.

They all won their seats fair and square, and no doubt will be loud voices in the caucus. But let’s not confuse volume with mass.

The hard left rode the wave that New Dems powered. These candidates won many districts in areas Donald Trump carried two years ago. Take J.D. Ford, who won Indiana’s Fifth District with more than 50% of the vote across counties Mr. Trump swept in 2024. Or Cait Conley, who beat one of the strongest Republican incumbents of the cycle in New York’s 17th District. Now those same candidates have a clear mandate and obligation to deliver what voters asked for.

They asked for lower costs: moreaffordable groceries, housing, healthcare and childcare. They asked for an economy that rewards hard work and builds things here in America. They asked for a Congress willing to act as a real check on corruption and hold the Trump administration accountable for the war with Iran, and for a government that actually functions. That is the New Dem agenda; it rests on a commonsense view of the political landscape.

Democrats won the midterms because they rejected the false choice between turning out their base and appealing to moderates. They did both. And they must govern without marginalizing either one.

But through all the postelection victory laps and political jockeying to come, don’t be confused. The blue districts were already safe. Democrats secured the majority by flipping Republican districts with moderate candidates who campaigned on the economy and promised to check Mr. Trump’s worst impulses. These are the New Dems, the majority makers. In the new Congress, they should be listened to.

For anyone trying to navigate the new Congress, my advice is this: The Democratic Caucus is a caucus of caucuses, a mix of coalitions, alliances and working groups. If you want to know where it’s headed, watch the members of the New Democrat Coalition. They’re already getting to work.

Mr. Israel served as a U.S. representative from New York, 2001-17. He directs the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University.