Democrats are expressing frustration over polls that show more voters see former President Trump as a moderate candidate in the presidential race against Vice President Harris.

Democrats have for years portrayed Trump as an extremist who poses a threat to democracy, but a poll published by The New York Times and Siena College found that more voters see Harris as too liberal than Trump as too conservative.

Democrats in Congress were baffled by the idea that Trump could be seen as the more moderate politician.

“This may be the first question I’ve been asked in my six years that I don’t have an immediate answer to because it’s so out of step with what I believe to be reality,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).

“It’s an incredible claim that he’s the more moderate candidate. I’m literally speechless, except that the perception – especially in the right-wing media – has to be that she’s just a far-leftist,” he said. “And I don’t think she is.”

Representative Katherine Clark (Mass.), who was wrangling for the Democratic caucus, delivered a similarly incredulous message.

“The poll that matters is the one on Election Day, and I don’t think Donald Trump will be elected because of his moderate views,” she said. “And if we now call a national ban on abortion, cutting veterans’ benefits and closing our public schools moderate – God help us all.”

The poll suggests that Republicans’ attacks on Harris have been successful in portraying her as further to the left, and that Democrats’ attacks on Trump as an extremist have not been as clear.

And some Democrats complained about voters who were doing well in the polls.

“Donald Trump has no core values, which is why he has been on one side or the other on so many issues throughout his political career,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau. “He goes to one group and says he’s going to do this, and to another group he says he’s going to do that. So it shouldn’t be surprising that there are some voters who see him in that light.”

Mollineau argued that Trump had sided with the “most conservative members of the Republican Party” and that Democrats needed to get their message across better to win over voters who saw Trump as the more moderate candidate.

A New York Times/Siena poll conducted earlier this week found that only 32 percent of likely voters think Trump is “too conservative.”

When asked whether Trump was too conservative, not conservative enough, or “not too far in one direction or the other,” 49 percent said he was “not too far in one direction or the other.”

Asked about Harris, 47 percent of likely voters said they thought she was “too liberal or progressive,” 9 percent said she was “not liberal or progressive enough,” and 41 percent said she was “neither too liberal nor too progressive enough.”

The poll unsettled Democrats, who had praised the Harris campaign’s efforts to take a more centrist stance since she was elected nominee. Harris has, for example, moved closer to the center on taxes with President Biden and dropped her call for a ban on fracking, a critical issue in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Phillips acknowledged that Harris was vulnerable to attacks from the right following her leftward shift during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

Harris ran for president in the 2020 election cycle, representing a range of liberal positions as she ran in the Democratic primaries against candidates such as Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, Vermont).

“Vice President Harris clearly has a legacy to deal with because of her leftward shift in the 2020 election – at least among independents and moderate Republicans,” he said.

However, he also argued that Harris was the far more moderate personality – and could hardly believe that the election campaign would be structured differently.

Democratic strategist Nayyera Haq said voters have forgotten what it was like for Trump to be in office.

“That’s the challenge that comes with Trump being in office for so long that some people forget how dangerous and unpredictable he was in the White House,” she said.

“His own chief of staff and military generals view him as a national security risk, and Trump suggested injecting bleach into veins to cure COVID. The entire Trump presidency has created great fear in the public, and no political statement can change that.”

The vice president said in an interview late last month that being vice president gave her a new perspective on issues like immigration and fracking, saying that while she has changed her policies on those issues, she has not changed her values.

“I think the most important and meaningful aspect of my political perspective and decisions is that my values ​​have not changed,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash.

In recent weeks, Harris’ campaign has sought to win favor with independent and moderate Republicans, not only through proposals such as a more modest capital gains tax increase for the wealthy, but also by announcing a number of Republican endorsements, including from former Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyoming).

The speakers on the final night of the Democratic Party Convention – from former Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) – also wanted to send a message to moderate voters.

In addition, the campaign was designed to counteract efforts by Trump and Republicans to portray Harris, an attorney general and former U.S. senator from California, as a liberal from San Francisco.

One Democratic strategist acknowledged: “Being a black politician from San Francisco conjures up the image of a ‘wild-eyed liberal,’ even if you are not one.”

Another strategist said some Democrats are concerned that Trump will succeed in distancing himself from conservative positions. Trump has opposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare and has moved to the center in Republican debates on abortion.

He is also responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade, has been appointed to the Supreme Court three times, and has tried to build a wall on the southern border. How can voters consider this candidate a moderate choice, some Democrats wonder.

But for Trump, this is nothing new.

A 2016 Pew Research poll found that 32 percent of voters viewed then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as liberal on almost all issues, 26 percent said she was liberal on most issues, and 28 percent said she represented both liberal and conservative views on her issues.

At the same time, 16 percent of respondents considered Trump conservative on almost all issues, 28 percent said he was conservative on most issues, and 40 percent said he was a mix of liberal and conservative.

Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who served as senior adviser to Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) during his 2012 presidential campaign, said presidential elections are “mostly about comparisons.”

“A perfect example would be Biden, who looked and sounded like a centrist compared to the rest of his party,” Madden said. “Compared to Harris and her previously stated positions as an authentic progressive, Trump has worked to present himself as more mainstream and in line with working-class concerns.”

“Look, it’s not an easy or simple path for either candidate to credibly claim the centrist position in this race, but Trump is getting a head start here,” he said.

This story was updated at 7:01 p.m.

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