Democrat warns US progressives against moving toward the center: ‘It lost me the election’

India Walton, who defeated incumbent mayor only to lose general election, says ‘moderating is what got us here’

By Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian

India Walton has a warning message for progressive Democrats during Donald Trump’s second presidency: don’t water down your politics to win over the establishment.

The Democratic socialist who stunned the Democratic party by defeating a four-term incumbent mayor in the Buffalo, New York, primary in 2021 believes moderating her leftwing message cost her the general election. It’s a lesson that carries new weight now that Zohran Mamdani secured his own victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary earlier in the summer and inspired thousands of other progressive candidates to also run for office.

After disrupting the political base in the US by beating sitting mayor Byron Brown in Buffalo’s Democratic primary, she says she pivoted toward the center – and lost.

“Moderating is what got us here,” said Walton, now a senior strategist at RootsAction, referring to Donald Trump’s return to the White House. “I believe that moderating is what lost me ultimately the election in 2021.

“I pivoted fairly quickly … to try and integrate myself into the party, because I thought that was the way to build a broad-based coalition,” she reflected. “It sort of ate away from our message from the inside out.”