Adopting rightwing policies 'does not help centre-left win votes'

Adopting rightwing policies on issues such as immigration and the economy does not help centre-left parties win votes, according to new analysis of European electoral and polling data.

Faced with a 20-year decline in their vote share, accompanied by rising support for the right, far right and sometimes the far left, social democratic parties across Europe have increasingly sought salvation by moving towards the political centre.

However, the analysis, published on Wednesday, shows that centre-left parties promising, for example, to be tough on immigration or public spending are unlikely to attract potential voters on the right, and risk alienating existing progressive supporters.

“Voters tend to prefer the original to the copy,” said Tarik Abou-Chadi, an associate professor of European politics at the University of Oxford and the co-founder of the Progressive Politics Research Network (PPRNet), which launched on Wednesday.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/10/adopting-rightwing-policies-does-not-help-centre-left-win-votes

This article is more than a year old and deals with Europe but I also think it applies to US politics. I think the way forward shouldn't include adopting some of Trump's policies including on the issue of immigration in order to win future elections. Kamala Harris moved away from some of her 2020 policies and ran as a moderate Democrat in 2024 which didn't help her much but based on the theory she should have won in a landslide.