Why do we keep losing to these guys?

Our program is so much more popular than theirs is.

Key Finding 9: The least popular progressive policies are more popular than Republicans’ signature legislative proposals. By a lot.

It’s important to keep some perspective here. According to the Real Clear Politics average, the Republican tax cut currently stands at net -7 percent approval. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that their failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act polled at net -24 (meaning that the Republican healthcare bill is less popular than reparations). Six -- six! -- percent of the public supports cutting Social Security, according to the American National Election Studies. We did not find universal support for every progressive agenda item we polled -- nor did we expect to. However, we consistently found that voters are more likely to want big-ticket progressive agenda items that are dismissed by the pundit class as electoral doom than policies that Republican candidates regularly commit to on the campaign trail and pursue while in office.

Those "big ticket progressive agenda items" polled here,  ending cash bail,  a jobs guarantee program, a public internet for all, and a generic drugs program all proved to be much more popular across the board than the conservative program of cutting taxes for rich people and destroying Social Security. 

So why do we keep losing to these guys? Maybe it has something to do with the "radical centrists" we keep propping up.

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu distinguished himself from budding voices in the left wing of the Democratic Party on Sunday and called for a "big tent" approach in the run-up to the midterm elections.

"I have always talked about governing from the middle," Landrieu said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I am what they call a radical centrist. There're not many of us left anymore. And yeah, it is really important for us to make sure that if we are given the responsibility to govern, that we govern in a pragmatic way, in a big tent way that makes sense."

Kind of hard to take advantage of these popular left of center ideas when you keep running away from them.