A report released this week from a group of political strategists and researchers states that the Democrats have lost their way. The Deciding To Win report from a group of legal organizations called Welcome claims that to win the next election, Democrats need to move towards the center and abandon progressive ideals, such as supporting LGBTQ+ people, fighting climate change, and protecting reproductive rights.Those issues are where Democrats are trusted more, but they tend to be less important to voters, writes Simon Bazelon, a Research Fellow with Welcome. Democrats should shift our stances on some lower-salience issues where our views are unpopular, including some cultural concerns (e.g., affirmative action in college admissions, transgender athletes). Related The 2024 election year may have made LGBTQ+ mental health worse Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today These suggestions are in line with the knee-jerk reaction to throw trans people under the bus that many pundits had in the wake of the presidents victory in 2024. Claims of the necessity to do so have been rebuked time and time again.Welcome started in 2021 as the WelcomePAC, established by Lauren Harper Pope and Liam Kerr. They led big tent campaigns in Ohio races, hoping to help Tim Ryan (D) defeat JD Vance (R) for Senate (which ultimately did not happen). They went on to found the nonprofits The Welcome Party and the Welcome Democracy Institute, the latter of which created Deciding To Win. The report is built on the analysis of election results, polls, academic papers, studies, and surveys conducted over the last year. Researchers blame out-of-touch donors and detached party elites for reshaping the Democratic party platform into one that ignores key economic issues that most Americans are engaged with, while pushing unpopular positions on a number of issues that are important to voters.Bazelon spoke with Voxs Eric Levits about the report this week. Levits quoted Bazelons report at him, pointing to a section where he says that the Democrats should stand against the president and Republicans but be disciplined and strategic in which fights we pick, and how we pick them, by focusing our opposition on issues where public support is most on our side. Levits asks whether that means letting the administrations actions- such as the forceful use of ICE and lack of due process for immigrants or the removal of trans people from the military slide, and only focusing on the economics of it all. There are absolutely trade-offs in politics, in your prioritization, Bazelon responds. Every tweet you send, every speech you give, every ad you run about one topic is a forfeited opportunity to speak about another topic. Every time the Democratic Party engages in political discourse, we are influencing voters perceptions of what we stand for and what we care about. And the reality is, yes, there are trade-offs, and if we want to win elections, then we need to show voters that we feel that issues like health care and the cost of living are the most important issues.Bazelon and his Deciding To Win report make it clear that if abandoning progressive values might provide a chance of winning an election, then those ideals should be discarded.The president campaigned heavily on anti-trans rhetoric, targeting trans athletes as a primary campaign element. After taking office, he was quick to issue executive orders that tried to define trans people out of existence. He has since pressured medical institutions to stop offering gender-affirming care, pushed schools and universities to roll back trans-inclusive policies, and advocated for trans people to be banned from playing sports on teams that align with their genders. If Democrats stray from defending trans rights, they could leave the floodgates open for further attacks on those rights.While Deciding To Win is based on surveys and polls about the perceptions of the Democratic party, those results might be skewed not by the Democrats actions, but by the successful propaganda produced by Republicans and right-wing pundits. Levits points out in his discussion with Bazelon that during the election, One poll suggested that about half of swing voters falsely believed that Kamala Harris supported defunding the police.Similarly, while there were concerns raised during the 2024 campaign that Democrats just wanted to talk about trans people, Republicans repeatedly raised anti-trans talking points, while Harris barely mentioned trans people at all. Deciding To Win claims the Democrats move towards progressive proposals has been happening since 2012, but it does not explain Bidens election win in that context. It also grudgingly acknowledges the success of left-wing progressive candidates: We have much to learn from the relentless focus of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani on lowering the cost of living and expanding opportunity for the middle class. All three of those candidates have spoken in support of the LGBTQ+ community and trans rights. 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