Former 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a sobering warning for the Democratic Party, saying in an interview that it needs to be “clear-eyed” about what wins elections, The Daily Mail/MSN News reports. In other words, if the Democratic Party isn’t on its game it may wind up handing the midterm elections to the Republicans.

In that interview, Clinton, the former Attorney General for the Obama Administration told MSNBC’s Willie Geist that Democrats need candidates who can please both sides of the bipartisan aisle. If Democrats wish for a Congress that can get things done, they will need to consider candidates that will appeal to purple states.

Clinton’s comments highlight the growing rift between the parties as “centrists grapple with fringes that offer ideological purity and headline-generating Twitter accounts,” per Daily Mail/MSN.

“For Democrats that means the so-called Squad of progressives — including the likes of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar,” writes Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter for right-leaning DailyMail.com.

“I think that it is time for some careful thinking about what wins elections, and not just in deep blue districts where a Democrat and a Liberal Democrat or so-called Progressive Democrat is going to win,” Clinton told Geist.

She noted that the Republicans are taking steps to make winning the Electoral College more difficult for Democrats.

“We’ve got to be very clear eyed about what it’s going to take to hold the House and the Senate in 2022,” Clinton said. “And to win the Electoral College because also Republicans are doing everything they can to create an environment in which winning the Electoral College, even narrowly the way Joe Biden did will be out of reach for Democrats.”

She also said she understands why politicians want to promote their own priorities.

“But at the end of the day, nothing is going to get done if you don’t have a Democratic majority in the House, in the Senate and our majority comes from people who win in much more difficult districts and our majority in the Senate comes from people who can win in more purpleish states,” she said.

Indeed, her words come right after the Democrats suffered defeat in Virginia’s gubernatorial election. And the party is trying to shore itself up while preparing for potentially serious repercussions against President Joe Biden during next year’s midterms.

Clinton said she is hopeful that there will be vigorous debate about the best ways to move forward but she’s also aware gridlock won’t be impossible either.

“But at the end of the day, it means nothing. If we don’t have a Congress that will get things done, and we don’t have a White House that we can count on to be sane and sober and stable and productive,” Clinton said.

“So this is going to be a very intense period, not just for the Democratic Party, but for the Country.”

Her remarks come at a time when some of the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party has opposed Biden.

Quite obviously his administration scored a sizable victory with the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, but at one point Omar opposed its progress unless it was also accompanied by a larger social spending program.

“I made a promise to my constituents that I would not vote for the infrastructure alone, unless the two bills were being passed together and were going to get signed together,” she told Minnesota’s Star Tribune newspaper recently.

Kudos to her for doing that, and she rightly notes that the Democrats are often far too timid when it comes to any sort of progressive reform.

“Democrats sometimes tend to be afraid of their own shadow and their own power,” Omar said. “So that’s been a little frustrating.”

And let’s face it, Republicans hate anything that has to do with spending more on social programs. So it’s understandable that The Squad gets under their skin. Plus we also have DINOs like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who frequently throw in with the Republicans against their fellow Democrats so there’s that.

But Clinton has a point — if we don’t want Republicans to win big in 2022, Democrats are going to have to do their best to appeal to those purple states. That includes the deeper purple ones like Oregon (which according to PurpleStatesOfAmerica.org. is 65 percent Democrat), and of course, states like Texas and Florida, which are both split right down the middle — 50 percent Democrat and 50 percent Republican.

Indeed, it looks like we’re in for some fun (sarcasm, Ok?) times. Let’s hope the Democrats are on their game.