There is a popular—and completely wrong—view of politics that candidates who are “extreme” stand no chance, while candidates who are “moderate” are more “electable.” To its proponents, this can seem like a truth so obvious that it is virtually a mathematical deduction. The median voter theorem says that if voters are distributed along an ideological spectrum, the candidate closest to the median voter will prevail. Therefore, centrism is not just a set of beliefs about ideal public policy, it is a science of winning elections.