Centrists Turn to Oppo
A pillar of the Democratic establishment has had enough
New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher is out this morning with a story about Third Way, “a leading centrist Democratic group,” and its new $15 million program to “discredit socialism” through the 2028 presidential election.
“It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states,” Third Way president Jonathan Cowan told Goldmacher. The group’s new program will “target” the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) with opposition research into the organization, plus polling, social media marketing, and “educating Democratic activists and leaders,” Cowan said.
The news comes two days after a progressive, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, won the Michigan primary and is now the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate. (The DSA has not endorsed El-Sayed; he told the Wall Street Journal he is not “technically or practically DSA.”)
The weekend before Michiganders went to the polls, the DSA held a “Socialists Summit” in Chicago. “The Democratic Socialists of America are in the midst of a year that has fundamentally begun to change their place in the country,” MSNOW reported about the gathering. “The idea of it being a fringe is fading.”
“The absence of a positive political vision is going to continue to be a crisis for the Democratic Party,” said a Seattle DSA attendee, and “an opportunity for us as an organization.”
From MSNOW reporters Eugene Daniels and Hunter Woodwall:
Even with possibly ripe conditions, what the DSA is now grappling with in public is its own platform — abolish the Senate, abolish police and prisons, get rid of the Defense Department — and no DSA candidate is running on any of it, and everyone in Chicago says so freely. It is also opposition research that writes itself, and Republicans are enjoying it.
The RNC Research account on X has been gleefully sharing plenty of DSA oppo lately. A sample:
Did someone say “Abolish the presidency?” Turns out this is indeed part of the DSA platform, per Igor Bobic of NOTUS:
The DSA’s new platform, unveiled earlier this month, calls for expanding the social safety net and making sweeping changes to the federal government. Those include abolishing the Senate, the presidency and the Supreme Court. Those institutions would be replaced with an “executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress,” as well as an expanded House of Representatives with multiple political parties instead of the current two-party system.
It’s possible this “executive” might be called “president,” but who’s to say? Clearly, the RNC thinks it is a cudgel worth using.
On the eve of the 2016 Iowa Caucuses, Third Way went public with its concerns about Sen. Bernie Sanders. “It doesn’t take professional opposition researchers to find things in Sanders’ past that would arm the Trump team with the political equivalent of nuclear weapons,” Cowan posted at the time. “All you have to do is #GoogleBernie.”
This prompted the Center for Media and Democracy to unload some oppo of its own on Third Way, highlighting, for example, the overlap between some of Third Way’s donors and supporters of the American Legislative Exchange Council, “a corporate bill mill that links lobbyists with state lawmakers.”
Sanders lost the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Hillary Clinton in a nail-biter. Third Way should brace for incoming oppo research as its strategy unfolds.
A final thought on all this comes from David Doak, a legendary campaign consultant whose work for Democratic Party candidates over the past four decades was recently recognized by the American Association of Political Consultants, which inducted him into its 2026 Hall of Fame. Doak’s take:
Oppo Research in the News…
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Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) are among the cosponsors of a bill to "would also prohibit a candidate from using those funds to pay for investigators or opposition research about the person” making allegations of sexual abuse against a sitting Member of Congress.
San Francisco Mayor Dan Lurie has spent more than $1 million on consultants since taking office, including payments to an opposition research firm.
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