The 2020 pri­ma­ry has, so far, been great for pro­gres­sives. The cam­paigns of both Bernie Sanders and Eliz­a­beth War­ren have robust pol­i­cy shops, churn­ing out bold, com­pre­hen­sive plans on issues from edu­ca­tion to cli­mate change to health­care to immigration.

Given how broadly popular such progressive ideas are, one would think that they would be a part of any concept of a political “center." But they’re not.

And vot­ers are respond­ing. War­ren has seen her poll num­bers rise, and is cur­rent­ly first in Iowa polling aver­ages and tied for first in New Hamp­shire. And, after a brief dip fol­low­ing his heart attack, Sanders rebound­ed in the polls too, buoyed by the momen­tum of endorse­ments from Reps. Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez, Rashi­da Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

But not every­one is hap­py about the pro­gres­sive ambi­tion on dis­play. And I’m not just talk­ing about the Wall Streeters who reg­u­lar­ly speak to the press about how much they don’t want a War­ren or Sanders presidency.

No, I’m talk­ing about those with­in the par­ty as well. Accord­ing to pun­dit Jonathan Chait, lead­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates are liv­ing in a ​“fan­ta­sy world” about how pro­gres­sive the elec­torate is, set­ting them­selves up for defeat. For­mer Chica­go may­or Rahm Emanuel, launch­ing a new career as a left-bash­ing com­men­ta­tor, thinks Democ­rats will alien­ate the sub­urbs if they push ​“pie-in-the-sky pol­i­cy ideas” or a ​“smörgås­bord of new enti­tle­ments.” Even House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi has joined in on try­ing to tem­per the ambi­tion of the pres­i­den­tial field, argu­ing, ​“What works in San Fran­cis­co does not nec­es­sar­i­ly work in Michigan.”

All three — along with count­less oth­er politi­cians and polit­i­cal observers — have been beat­ing the drum that a pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy agen­da is wild­ly out of step with the public.

Chait, for instance, laments that Democ­rats are aban­don­ing an Oba­ma-esque incre­men­tal­ism. But there isn’t much rea­son to believe that such incre­men­tal­ism is an elec­toral win­ner giv­en the shel­lack­ing Democ­rats faced amid cra­ter­ing turnout in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. A polit­i­cal pro­gram needs to build a con­stituen­cy to fight for it.

To be clear, not every vot­er will agree with you on every sin­gle issue. A can­di­date sim­ply needs to con­vince vot­ers that they are more trust­wor­thy and more like­ly to fight on the vot­ers’ behalf in the areas where they do agree.

For­tu­nate­ly for pro­gres­sives, the vot­ers do agree on a lot.

Tax­ing the rich. Data for Progress recent­ly polled the tax plans of Bernie Sanders, Eliz­a­beth War­ren, Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump. Six­ty-five per­cent of vot­ers chose either Sanders or Warren’s plan as their favorite. Even 50% of Repub­li­cans did.

A Green New Deal. The idea of a Green New Deal has become the hall­mark of ambi­tious cli­mate plans in 2020, rec­og­niz­ing the need for mas­sive invest­ment in decar­boniz­ing infra­struc­ture and good-pay­ing green jobs. It’s a deal vot­ers approve of: accord­ing to the Cook Polit­i­cal Report, 67% of swing vot­ers say that a Green New Deal is a good idea.

Free Col­lege. Giv­en the crush­ing impact of stu­dent debt on a gen­er­a­tion of stu­dents and recent grad­u­ates, can­di­dates like Sanders and War­ren have been talk­ing about elim­i­nat­ing tuition at pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. In a New York Times poll from this sum­mer, three-fifths of vot­ers, includ­ing 72% of inde­pen­dents, sup­port­ed the idea.

Medicare for All. The idea of mov­ing toward a health­care sys­tem that isn’t reliant on pri­vate, for-prof­it insur­ers espe­cial­ly riles up the naysay­ers. Polling on health­care reforms can vary a lot based on phras­ing, so the best data on pop­u­lar sup­port is one that tests mul­ti­ple fram­ings at once. When the Pro­gres­sive Change Insti­tute test­ed sup­port for Medicare for All, they found that as long as pro­gres­sives offer coun­ter­ar­gu­ments and don’t let Repub­li­can nar­ra­tives dom­i­nate, Medicare for All com­mands major­i­ty sup­port.

That’s why we’ve seen Democ­rats run on Medicare for All in pur­ple dis­tricts and win. Katie Porter and Mike Levin, both sup­port­ers of Medicare for All, suc­ceed­ed in the well-heeled sub­urbs of Orange Coun­ty. And Medicare for All sup­port­er Matt Cartwright, who rep­re­sents Oba­ma-Trump ter­ri­to­ry in north­east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia (think Scran­ton), won re-elec­tion by almost dou­ble dig­its over a well-fund­ed Repub­li­can challenger.

Giv­en how broad­ly pop­u­lar such pro­gres­sive ideas are, one would think that they would be a part of any con­cept of a polit­i­cal ​“cen­ter.” But they’re not.

That’s because the ​“cen­ter” pun­dits talk about isn’t actu­al­ly the cen­ter of the elec­torate. It more often refers to the cen­ter of the elite class of major donors — uphold­ing a cor­po­rate-friend­ly sta­tus quo.

“Cen­trist” Democ­rats in Con­gress are fight­ing to pro­tect phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal monop­o­lies, thus inflat­ing the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs. By con­trast, three-quar­ters of vot­ers in key swing dis­tricts, accord­ing to a recent poll, want to see such monop­o­lies bro­ken up.

“Cen­trist” Democ­rats have aid­ed and abet­ted Don­ald Trump’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies, but polls show that vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly oppose fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion and a bor­der wall.

“Cen­trist” Democ­rats often flock to bills that roll back reg­u­la­tions on Wall Street, and yet crack­ing down on Wall Street is pop­u­lar across the polit­i­cal spec­trum.

“Cen­trist” Democ­rats push to increase mil­i­tary spend­ing year after year, and yet only one-third of vot­ers actu­al­ly think that we are spend­ing too little.

The fact that pro­gres­sive poli­cies are pop­u­lar — and that poli­cies brand­ed ​“cen­trist” often aren’t — doesn’t mean that pro­gres­sive can­di­dates can rest on their lau­rels and be assured of vic­to­ry. We’ve seen pro­gres­sive bal­lot mea­sures win in the same elec­tions that more pro­gres­sive can­di­dates didn’t.

What it does mean is that you can run on pro­gres­sive poli­cies and val­ues and win. And that you can change what we even mean by the ​“cen­ter” in the process.