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From the halls of Congress to the presidential campaign trail, Democratic moderates are beginning to push back against the wave of liberal energy and shoot-the-moon policy ideas that have captured the party's imagination over the last two months.
They worry that the sweeping proposals and hardball tactics of liberal firebrands could alienate centrist voters in the 2020 election, even as they hold out hope that Democratic primary voters, focused on defeating President Donald Trump, will check the party's move to the left.
The moderates' concerns came to a head this week when one of the newest Democratic stars appeared to threaten her colleagues if they did not toe the liberal line, raising the specter of a cleave in the party between moderates and purists similar to a long-standing divide in the Republican Party.
At a closed-door meeting of House Democrats on Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said some of her colleagues could find themselves "on a list" of primary election targets, after they voted for a Republican amendment requiring that undocumented immigrants who try to buy guns be reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to people in the room who were not authorized to comment publicly. Read more
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