Angie Craig

By Briana Bierschbach, The Minnesota Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS — In Angie Craig’s Senate campaign, one word keeps surfacing: fighter.

It’s the centerpiece of nearly every speech and the message driving a pair of new TV ads released this week. One features local elected officials from across Minnesota praising Craig for standing up to the Trump administration, including voting twice to impeach him.

“If you want a fighter to stop Trump’s assault on democracy, we damn sure need Angie Craig in the Senate,” the ad declares, as images flash of Craig protesting Trump, meeting with voters and crisscrossing the state.

Whether consciously or not, Craig’s U.S. Senate campaign is testing a broader Democratic theory that is gaining traction among some strategists: combative centrism.

The premise is that moderates don’t have to surrender the politics of confrontation to the party’s left flank. At a moment when Democratic voters are demanding candidates take the fight to Donald Trump — and, in many cases, their own party’s establishment — groups backing centrists are trying to reclaim the “fighter” mantle without abandoning a more pragmatic brand of politics.

“What does a strong fighter look like? Someone principled, someone willing to call out corruption and challenge the Trump administration on rising costs and foreign policy. Strength isn’t necessarily ideological,” said Kate deGruyter with centrist think tank Third Way, which is leading the push for combative centrist candidates in the 2028 presidential field.

“Someone in the political center can embody those traits and still build the coalition needed to win.”

But before that strategy can shape the 2028 presidential race, it must first survive its first real test: the 2026 midterms. Third Way doesn’t endorse candidates, but it’s closely watching the Senate campaigns of Haley Stevens in Michigan and Craig in Minnesota, two Democrats who flipped Republican-held House seats and haven’t lost since.

Craig has built her campaign around two major themes: winning tough races and fighting Trump. But the race has tightened since the administration launched Operation Metro Surge. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan attacked Craig’s immigration record, including her vote for the Laken Riley Act. Recent polls now show the race is essentially tied.

Immigration has reshaped the political landscape, and Democrats have to show voters “they hear their concerns about immigration,” deGruyter said.

“But Democrats also have to be able to articulate that some level of enforcement is appropriate. That’s how you connect with middle-of-the-road voters.”

The argument fits into Third Way’s broader electoral theory: Democrats won’t win back the White House or in tough statewide races without reclaiming moderate voters. The group points to decades of election data showing Democratic presidential nominees have typically needed to win about 60% of moderates to prevail — a threshold only Barack Obama fell short of while still winning the presidency.

Craig’s campaign won’t settle the debate over the Democratic Party’s future, but it could offer an early indication of whether primary voters are looking for someone who campaigns with a fighter message and also governs from the center.

Negotiating budgets, working in divided government and making difficult compromises require their own kind of grit, deGruyter argues, but Democrats haven’t always projected that.

“Sometimes Democrats haven’t done enough … to show they’re deeply principled even when making hard choices,” she said. “That’s something our wing of the party needs to lean into because I think it’s what voters are looking for.”

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