New York, September 17 – As Democrats search for their way out of the political wilderness, a new think tank, introduced on Wednesday, has some ideas about where the party went wrong says Reid J. Epstein in New York Times on September 17.
Among them: too much emphasis on issues like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and far too much deference to the powerful liberal organizations championing those causes at the expense, some argue, of appealing to voters in battleground states, Epstein says.
The think tank, the Searchlight Institute, was started by Adam Jentleson, a veteran Democratic operative. He knows that his effort, intended to minimize the sway that left-leaning groups have over candidates before what is expected to be a crowded 2028 presidential primary, will infuriate almost everyone — activists, organizations and the party’s liberal base, which is urging Democrats to fight President Trump.
“The folks who are most to blame about Trump are the ones who pushed Democrats to take indefensible positions,” Mr. Jentleson said in an interview Tuesday, citing a series of positions Kamala Harris took in 2019 before walking back many of them once she became the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024.
Right now we’re pursuing every tactic imaginable except for the obvious one, which is taking positions that are more in line with the people we are trying to win over,” he added.
Searchlight, Mr. Jentleson said, is starting with an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of seven in its Capitol Hill office. The organization is subsidized by a roster of billionaire donors highlighted by Stephen Mandel, a hedge fund manager, and Eric Laufer, a real estate investor. Its name is a homage to the dusty Nevada hometown of Senator Harry Reid, for whom Mr. Jentleson, 44, served as a senior aide.
For months, Democrats have debated how and why they lost so much ground in last year’s elections, when Mr. Trump made inroads with the party’s multiracial coalition of working-class voters and most of the country swung to the right.
Democratic centrists have blamed the party’s left wing, while progressives blame its centrists for dampening enthusiasm around and refusing to endorse candidates who don’t fit the establishment mould.
Mr. Jentleson, in public and private conversations, has long had it out for “the groups,” his shorthand for the myriad organizations that support the Democratic coalition. An opinion essay he wrote shortly after Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory included 16 mentions of the “groups.”
In some ways, Mr. Jentleson is working to push Democrats toward an approach that’s the opposite of the politics Mr. Trump has ridden twice into the White House. Rather than explicitly trying to broaden their coalition, Republicans have unapologetically embraced issues that most excite their base, taking hard-right positions on immigration, transgender rights and a perceived liberal cultural influence.
Mr. Jentleson wants his party to de-emphasize issues that typically animate the party’s most loyal voters. And much of his project is rooted in the lesson he took away from the Democrats’ last competitive primary in 2020.
With Joseph R. Biden Jr. dominating the centrist lane, other candidates courted the support of liberal organizations that pushed them leftward on issues like transgender rights. That came back to haunt Ms. Harris last fall when Mr. Trump’s team clipped footage of her appearance at the National Center for Transgender Equality for a campaign ad that helped define the general election.
Since Ms. Harris’s loss, many in the party have adopted a more economic-focused message while avoiding social issues. Some prominent Democrats, like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, have backtracked on prior support for transgender rights and open immigration policy.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/us/politics/democrats-liberals-jentleson-searchlight.html
