The 50-50 split in the U.S. Senate has drawn significant attention to the several centrist Democratic Senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Many left-leaning people have criticized them for opposing abolishing the filibuster and raising the minimum wage. While these criticisms have a factual basis, they ignore the electoral reality in America today. Some of these politicians represent the only winnable candidates in more moderate locations. Joe Manchin remains the only state-level Democrat politician in the deep-red state of West Virginia. Kyrsten Sinema became the first elected Democratic Senator in Arizona for 20 years. However, they are the pattern rather than the anomalies. In 2020, the strongest U.S. House candidates mostly [took moderate stances](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-strongest-house-candidates-in-2020-were-mostly-moderate/). These political opinions allowed them to win in areas adverse to their parties. Therefore, criticisms of these politicians seem unsustainable. Their moderate stances represent the proper working of representative democracy as they adhere to the opinions of their constituents. Moreover, these politicians hold the key to power for either of the two major parties in the two chambers. From an electoral standpoint, their input should hold outsized weight in political calculations. For this reason, battleground state politicians in the U.S. are undervalued.