In a memo that was helpfully leaked to Politico, a super PAC supporting Lamb argues that because “primary voters don’t yet see Fetterman as the liberal he is,” Lamb’s candidacy is in danger unless something changes. Future Republican attacks on Fetterman are tested, and does “defund the police” (something Fetterman doesn’t support) make an appearance? You bet it does.
The super PAC’s analysis is simple: Lamb is more centrist than Fetterman; Fetterman is winning because people don’t understand that; eventually they will, even if it doesn’t happen until the general election; so primary voters have to be persuaded to get with the program now and back the centrist in the race.
The trouble is that while the Pennsylvania Senate primary might involve ideology, it isn’t just about ideology. With all due respect to Conor Lamb, he’s pretty indistinguishable from a thousand congressional candidates who have come before: clean-cut, solid résumé, just the kind of person you picture when you think “congressman.”
Fetterman, on the other hand, stands out, from his imposing stature (6-foot-8) to his tattoos to his sartorial choices (he’s one of those shorts-in-the-winter guys) to his unashamed advocacy of issues such as marijuana legalization. Might his liberalism be a vulnerability in a closely divided state? It’s possible, but it’s also possible that his long record of concern for people in distressed areas of the state will help him win votes in places many Democrats don’t. Some people love Fetterman because of who he is, and some people don’t.
In other words, it’s complicated.
Now let’s consider another Democratic member of Congress arguing for the supposed magical electoral potency of centrism, Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida. Murphy recently announced that she won’t be running for reelection; while Florida’s redistricting process is still underway, there’s a good chance her district is going to be redrawn to be much more Republican, which would have made it difficult for her to win.
In a recent interview, Murphy offered what has become a familiar lament from centrists: that more liberal members were making her life difficult and endangering the party more generally. She takes the tactical disagreement over whether it was better to join the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill together, and turns it into evidence of the extremism of the left.
That’s despite the fact that you could argue that Murphy got her way in that controversy, and the more progressive members were proved right. The bills were severed, and just as progressives warned, once the infrastructure bill was passed, centrists (in particular Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia) turned around and killed the BBB.
And there’s no evidence that the passage of the infrastructure bill has boosted Democrats’ electoral prospects.
Murphy talks about the importance of letting members “vote their district,” which no one disagrees with — except for the fact that in her case, there was no reason to believe that Murphy’s constituents opposed the BBB. (Poll after poll showed widespread support for the key elements of the bill.)
Might Republicans have found a way to turn Murphy’s district against it? Maybe. But that has to be weighed against the consequences of failure, which includes a party base dispirited by Democrats’ failure to pass the bill that embodied most of their domestic agenda. In other words: It’s complicated.
Furthermore, it isn’t as though Murphy discovered some foolproof formula for electoral success, and this gets to something deeper about how congressional politics have changed in recent years.
In 2020, Murphy won her race by 12 points, while Joe Biden won her district by 10 points. That narrow difference could be explained by dozens of factors. And congressional results and presidential results have been converging over time. Incumbency isn’t the advantage it used to be, and moderation often doesn’t matter because voters are so focused on the national picture. Which isn’t at all irrational: If you’re a Republican yet you kind of like your Democratic congresswoman, it still makes sense to vote against her if it increases the chances that your party will take back the House.
Obviously, the closer races are and the more attention they get, the more small things can make a difference. But even if it were true that all else being equal, having a reputation as a moderate might help, all else is never equal.
And “moderate” isn’t just a button you can push, after which everyone in your district or state will have a perfect understanding of who you are and how you’re situated in relation to their own beliefs.
Murphy clearly believed that severing the BBB from the infrastructure bill — which led to the BBB’s demise — was a way to push that magical button, but if doing so contributed to a sense among her constituents that Democrats can’t get things done to improve their lives, it would almost certainly have cost her more votes than it won her.
Meanwhile, Lamb has discovered that reminding everyone he’s a moderate is taking him only so far. The argument between centrists and liberals might never be resolved, but don’t believe anyone who tells you the answer is as simple as these moderates believe.
