New Democrats (United States)

New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being moderate or fiscally conservative on economic issues.^[1] New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the mid-2010s, and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.

However, with the rise of progressivism with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, higher support for protectionism in the United States,^[2] and a general leftward shift of the Democratic Party since the 2010s, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) challenged the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) for the largest party plurality. As of April 2024, the seat margin between the two caucuses remains a source of dialogic contestations because almost thirty members of the NDC (and Blue Dog Coalition) self-signify as both Progressive and New Democrat, a dialectical legacy of both the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Third Way. With the notable exception of Sara Jacobs, delegates who currently hold seats in both caucuses were all born before 1979, with a supermajority born in, or well before, 1973. They also began their partisan careers on the eve of, or prior to, the Presidency of Barack Obama.^[3][4][5][6]