Conservative Democrat
After 1980, the Republicans became a mostly right-wing conservative party, with conservative leaders such as Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and Tom DeLay, while the Democrats, while keeping their core liberal bases intact with such Senators as Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, and Paul Sarbanes, grew a substantial moderate/centrist wing, the New Democrats, in the 1990s in place of their old conservative wing, with leaders such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Evan Bayh. In the 2010 midterm elections, many conservative Democrats lost their seats to the Republicans.
Political positions of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The party describes itself as supporting American liberalism and American progressivism. The party incorporates centrists liberals and progressives, as well as more left-wing or socialist movements, many aligned with the presidential campaign of independent Senator Bernie Sanders. There is also a small Conservative wing represented in the house by the Blue Dog Coalition, although Conservative Democrat ideology is different from the traditional Conservatism the Republican party supports. Policies of past Democratic platforms have sought to protect social programs, labor unions, consumer protection and workplace safety regulation, equal opportunity and racial equality, and regulation against pollution of the environment. Democrats support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, tend to support an easier pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.