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New methodology on party ID this poll: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/u...

This is why obsessively focus-grouping your messaging is really stupid. Garbage in, garbage out.

“A new poll from the New York Times” is where you need to stop lol @oliverdarcy.bsky.social @aoc.bsky.social

NYT is a fascist mis/disinformation outfit

We just want to win for once. If moving to the center is going to get us the majority then do it. Too much to fix. Social policies can also happen, but we need to be in power first. This is how Biden was elected.

It's the FTFNYT - of COURSE they're gonna lie about it.

More parties needed.

not a single one of those graphs indicate that a majority of voters want the Democrats to move to the right, though? like that was just invented whole cloth?

Isn't that an information knowledge problem? The generic voter doesn't know what left and right are, so stop asking that.

The Dems moving to the center would be a move to the left. The Overton window has shifted so radically that the Democratic party is center right and the GOP is far right.

With my critical discursive psychology head on, the answers demonstrate that people's 'object of thought' for left, right & socialism etc. differ, are complex and are self-constructed. Hence not universally applicable & understood generalisations, so can't be aggregated in the way this poll attempts

Voters are, let's see, how to put this... idiots.

dude how many horses kicked how many people in the head how many times to end up with fucking insane results like this????!??

What questions were asked? I suggest: 1. Do you want your income taxes to pay for your medical care or a private police force for the president? 2. Do you want a government that supports server farms even if it means you lose your house? 3. Should the rich control elections and the government?

Moderate Socialism ftw

18% of people who haven’t heard of socialism

of course, the NYT would present such a poll -- it's in their anti-democratic interests.

Which means we ARE a big tent. What we need to do is stop trying to get far right voters on board. Concentrate on talking to people. Invest in normies not donors.

The Dem voter is compromised brained. Center implies a compromise, not a position.

These kinds of poll questions are far to subjective to have any practical usefulness. Try to find two voters who agree on a definition of "the center" or even agree on what "socialism" means. You'll have a frustrating lack of success. Leave these questions to focus groups, they suck as polling Qs

And now they’re extremely popular in Canada Far more popular than under Trudeau

So they want moderation huh - a bit of left, center and right all thrown in together

Is what happens when you present people with deeply unserious polling using poorly defined, vague terminology that means different things to different people. "Moderate"? "Center"? NYT and the rest of the media use these terms as if they have universally recognized definitions. They don't.

Voters think their left wing opinions are to the center.

I actually don’t think any of those are contradictory and together they form the following coherent world view: (1) Democrats should move right to win elections; (2) the ideology of the Democratic Party is true and correct; (3) socialism has important elements to borrow from but not all.

This is like the Poochie episode focus group

They want Dems to move to the center to win elections, then govern as the “socialists” they are (because they think generic Dem ideas like “tax the rich to fund health care for the middle class” is socialism due to years of successful GOP propaganda)

Adam it's crazy when think about it common senses out the door as of late. In 20 years most middle road thinking common sense people will be labeled as Republicans. And the name will take different meaning. While both extreme branches each party will become they're own thing..

The phrasing is “move to the center” - everyone has a different idea of where that is.

People interpret those words (center, left, the right, etc.) differently. They're also probably trying to guess what the pollster means by them to answer in a way that expresses their real opinion. That's my guess as to what's going on here.

Not sure I trust how they’re identifying “potential Democratic voters” 🤨

What a terribly formed poll

Dem voters want to move closer to the party that wants to disenfranchise them. Am I following this?

But it's not the Democrats making a policy of "disagreeability."

This polarization started when women, Black ppl & other ‘lesser’ humans started voting, speaking up, acting out, approaching equality. It ends, hopefully, when equality is achieved. Ironic, then, that centrists have largely abandoned the policies that would free them from this toxic dynamic.

Tough shit if they are tired. The other side isn’t and will do anything to see the left destroyed and thrown in jail.

It sure does suck that the majority of the country has the political understanding of a small child

It is the dilemma the Democrats can't seem to resolve: stick unyeildingly to absolute principles and just hope they can pull a MAGA in the generals of winning w/out voters who aren't True Believers, or moderate and get accused of betraying their partisans (who are the ones voting in the primaries).

Yeah well tough shit for them then. If they want a choice in the matter, they have to start choosing sides. Sorry that’s exhausting and hard, but the world sucks so deal with it.

I agree. Nothing about that graph looks tragic. It says “move more to center” not move to the right. You could probably find another set of Dems that would say move more left. I didn’t read anything that was strange about that poll

the biggest problem is people refusing to admit that centrism is toxic, not fighting fascism

True and also incompatible with fighting Trump

That's not at all what I'm saying, no idea where you're pulling that from. Policy heavy campaigning or not is irrelevant, aside from whether the policies suck. What I'm saying is that when many people express a preference for "centrism" they don't mean centrist policy, they mean vibes.

Order instead of Justice

Do those people understand that the Rs have gone so far right that "the center" is now to the right?

Yes. Many people would like to not have a reason to hate their neighbors. This is different than how politicians interpret the signal. The people do not, in fact, yearn for bipartisan plans to cut corporate taxes.

Also: the Republican moderate mirror-images of those folks all got kicked out into the political wasteland of no-party (or went along and radicalized) when MAGA won control of the GOP, hence why you don't hear similar things from the other side anymore.

Natural conclusion is the Socialism is the real centrism

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So... down-low lefties who see that we're in a good place to win the midterms, but think we need to pander to the center to win the presidency?

none of these words mean anything to the people answering these questions and to the extent they do understand them, its entirely in personal terms that are not transferable to the next person.

It makes sense if they think the party is right of center and not extreme in any regard, and see socialism as a moderate position? 🤷‍♂️

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It’s funny that they think poll subjects have a political scientist’s understanding of the political spectrum.

@nytpitchbot.bsky.social

People are idiots who don't understand shit

the bar-coloring takes for granted that the Dem party is to the right of “socialism” … which I certainly believe it is, but it’s possible that some people don’t

Buzzword burnout. Terms have lost their meaning so much no one knows what they mean when someone asks about socialism, left, right, or moderate. And wtf is 'small government', does that mean it can fit in a uterus?

So, meaningless data? I guess it depends where dems live.

Because it's not just Democratic voters. It says it was a poll of Democrats and "potential Democrats". So...Republicans. The results are what Republicans *think* a "true Democrat" is.

Note: “potential” voters ≠ registered voters

The sleight of hand where "right" and "centre" are both used sometimes but never together is wildly dishonest

They want universal healthcare but not for trans people.

Socialism is the center.

Makes perfect sense to me. For example, I'm a big fan of social democracies, e.g. in the Nordic countries, but i know that model would be impossible to implement in the US anytime soon, so I prefer that the Dems be more centrist in order to win elections and beat the fascists.

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And when a campaign happens and voters face their own taxes increasing for ____, things change yet again. When something appears free voters love it

So the poll question says "move to the center" and you write "move to the right". That's a you problem. The Dem party is far to the right of the G20 mainstream. This is masked cause the GOP is one of the radical right wing groups in the world. Quickly approaching Putin / Taliban territory

Would love to know the breakdown of the ages sampled. Voters under 25-30 do NOT know a world of more congenial politics. How it was ok to have different *policy* ideas and still be friends. We have taken a very sharp turn back to 19th C political ideas-- the rabidness of extreme ideation

On the matter of socialism, this shows that the Republicans have not only failed to villainize the word, but they also have managed to push people to have a favorable opinion of it. This is despite many or most people being able to define what it is, regardless of their sentiment. 2/2

Would you recommend the Democratic Party to a friend?

This was the deliberate result of Republicans describing every single thing even the most moderate democrat ever did ever as "radical extremist far left Marxist socialism communism"

Most people don't have a coherent political ideology. That's why you wind up with polls that say Dems are too far to the left but then the same people express their support for left-wing policies that most Dems in power won't even touch (like M4A)

Left-Right just isn't a useful measure anymore. Probably hasn't been for some time.

There is a hell of alot of explaining in this thread which goes to great lengths to avoid the obvious truth, which is that the average voter is an absolute moron with the emotional maturity and self-realization of a toddler.

Can I become evil by not really doing any particular thing?

They rate all options, from duct tape to chopping off feet to save on wear.

It's called political illiteracy and its gonna SOAR.

OPEN THE SCHOOLS

We may be too stupid for democracy. 🤦‍♀️

The favourable opinion of socialism is quite surprising

- Did AI do the survey…? Sounds ‘hallucinatory’…

They also just don’t mean anything coherent in 2026 period. The “right-wing” party supports high tariffs, the govt taking ownership stakes in corporations, and federal agencies dictating minutiae of state and local policy. In 2004, this would’ve been a GOP caricature of the far-left.

We see a hint of this here: When asked about a specific political ideology, socialism, it gets a big favorable plurality. This runs “counter” to the other questions labels because they’re vague, can mean different things depending on who you ask. Pollsters need more specific Q’s to get accurate A’s.

Liberal policies aren't popular, there is a reason no one likes liberals. Socialist policies are popular.

There's a whole cottage industry of left-of-center orgs that run polls designed to exploit people's tendency to assent to programs worded as doing something positive for people. That's not to say nothing left-leaning is genuinely popular, but you have to not overinterpret the results.

Absolutely this. The way the questions were asked in this poll make the answers essentially meaningless.

Perhaps, but they might just be channeling the leaders of the party itself. When BLM protestors chant "Defund the police," Dem leaders balk and propose funding more training. "Abolish ICE", they suggest reform. "Tax the rich," is met by tax credits. "Trans rights" is met with "but only adults". Etc.

Yeah, decades of red scare propaganda have obliterated the gen pop's understanding of what constitutes leftism. I think it's much better with ppl under 40 than over 40, so this may be less of an issue in a few decades. Unfortunately, that isn't for a few decades!

As the right wing goes more and more extreme a move to the center will only take you to the position of a semi moderate republican. Not a Democrat or what the rest of the world views as a moderate. So they will vote against self intrest Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers

The median voter baby!

I figure most people who don't think about it too much think themselves reasonable and therefore in the center somewhere, and therefore Dems should move to the center (their personal exact politics.) But also it's just The Savvy Thing To Say when you're asked to play strategist instead of your prefs

The fact that they framed it as "move to the center" and not "move to the right" poisoned the data set.

Also "socialism/communism bad?" Will get different answers than asking about specific policy as americans also have been taught for more than a century that socialism means you work in the depression factory manufacturing grey jumpsuits and flat caps and eat only gruel.

what democratic voters want is less important than what the small % of independents and GOP voters want to vote for a Dem candidate.

I think most voters aren’t that ideological. For the most part, they will get behind anyone who keeps prices low and jobs solid. And Dems mostly just want people who will fight and stand up to Republicans. I think the far left vs left vs moderate handwringing isn’t all that necessary.

“And potential democratic supporters” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here - this is classic NYT doing a push poll

. . . I hate people . . .

You're falling for the Republican lie that all universal healthcare is socialist. Japanese hospitals are mostly privately owned by non profits apparently.

That's not socialism. It's just the government providing a service, like public k-12 education. That's mixed market capitalism. The US could have much the same thing by making something like medicare a universal public option for insurance. You can support that, but that's not socialism.

This is an example of terrible poll construction leading to goofy graphs. "Potential Democratic voter" is everyone in the U.S. other than Ken Paxton apologists who lack the capacity to lie. Of course the results appear whack.

Our educational system has failed us, part 5,492.

Yes! It's too far right for me!

That's a good point. "Move to the center" as an answer is meaningless unless you know whether the respondent thinks the party is currently too far to the left or too far to the right.