Former Hawaii Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard won the hearts of many during the 2020 presidential elections on both the left and the right. While still a Democrat with positions Republicans wouldn’t vote for, Gabbard was closer to the middle than the other candidates, many of whom had bought into the false idea that in order to get elected they had to become a bit more radically left.

Gabbard didn’t buy into this idea, and among a sea of radicalism, the Hawaii senator seemed more sensible.

Fast forward to today, and the victory of the GOP’s Glenn Youngkin over incumbent Governor Terry McAuliffe has proven that the Democrats bet on the wrong horse and America is not the leftist country they thought it was. Gabbard had it right all along and hers should have been the path the Democrats followed in order to maintain electability in today’s political climate.

Even now, Gabbard continues to prove to be the example Democrats should follow as her commentary about McAuliffe’s loss is going to sting the Democrat Party, but it’s necessary nonetheless.

“McAuliffe’s loss is a victory for all Americans,” said Gabbard in a tweet. “Why? Because it was a resounding rejection of efforts to divide us by race, the stripping of parental rights, and arrogant, deaf leaders. This benefits us all.”

It’s been made pretty clear that Virginians rejected McAuliffe based on many hard-left policies that he supported, including the rights of parents to have a say in their children’s education, which McAuliffe effectively admitted he rejected during a debate. On top of that, attempting to make the entire modus operandi of the GOP about racist dog whistling was a tool that lost a lot of its luster in the face of a party that hitherto had pushed critical race theory, especially in schools. Pile on top of that the attempt to introduce books into school libraries that contained graphic depictions of homosexual acts and approving passages about pedophilia, and you have the perfect recipe for political self-destruction.

This isn’t just a McAuliffe problem, it’s a Democrat Party problem, and America isn’t having it.

(READ: Democrats Didn’t Misjudge the Nation’s Mood; They Completely Ignored It)

If Democrats want to maintain any sort of relevancy, they’ll need to make their way back to the center and reject the radicalism that’s infected its party. They need to be the party of Manchin more than they need to be the party of AOC. Even leftist strategists are openly saying this on leftist networks.

There’s going to be a civil war in the Democrat party but if they want to turn things around they’ll likely need to have it now. They’ll probably sacrifice the midterms and 2024 in order to do it, but unless they become a little more Gabbard and a lot less Biden, the Democrat Party will be an unelectable mess.