What Moves People: Lessons from the US Campaign Trail with Gregor Poynton MP

​In the U.S., a civil war is brewing within the Democratic Party, and the fight for the future of the American left has implications well beyond U.S. politics - reaching UK politics and issue mobilisation.

According to the pundits, the story seems to be democratic socialists vs. establishment centrists. But voters are telling us something strategists keep missing: the fault line isn’t left vs. center; it's disrupting the status quo vs. incremental change. Voters are responding to leaders with big, bold ideas about how to fundamentally reshape things. And they are suspicious of rhetoric without the political will to make real change.

So the real questions aren’t about ideology. They’re about political imagination:

• ​How do our political institutions and organisations respond to a demand for significant change?

• ​How do you sustain momentum for candidates and ideas that can't pass on day one and without losing the people who advocated for them?

• ​With the rise of the far right, should progressives compete on the centre ground, offer a more transformative alternative, or find a way to combine broad appeal with meaningful change?

​In this panel discussion, you'll hear lessons from U.S. political and advocacy campaigns to think through how these same pressures are shaping, and will shape, campaigning in the UK.

Speakers:

- Lizi Zipser, Executive Director, Blue State (chair)
- Gregor Poynton MP, Member of Parliament for Livingston
- Maya Rupert, Executive Vice President, Blue State
- Eric Reif, Senior Vice President, Media, Blue State
- Randi Lawrence, Deputy Director, Campaign Lab

This event is being kindly supported by Blue State.

​This session is part of The Campaign Fringe, a full day of events, training sessions, and exhibits. For more details and to see the rest of the agenda, see here.