Outgoing Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., offered a reality check to his party as some Democrats implore possible 2020 presidential candidates to adopt policy positions further to the Left in order to gin up the base.

“The talk on the coasts just doesn’t get it done in the middle,” Donnelly, who lost his re-election bid last month to Republican Sen.-elect Mike Braun, told CNN Friday.

Donnelly, a one-term senator who was defeated by more than double-digits thanks in part to President Trump’s multiple visits to Indiana in the closing weeks of the campaign, warned that he didn’t see a Democratic pathway to the White House without the Midwest. He also reminded his colleagues that “who wins the primary is not necessarily the best person in a general election,” while refusing to name a specific candidate he believed could oust Trump.

“We have not made enough of a connection, I worked like a dog nonstop to make that connection, that the people of my state understand culturally, we want to make sure you succeed,” Donnelly told the network. “But when you talk ‘Medicare for all’ … you start losing the people in my state. When we start talking about, ‘Hey, we’re going to work together with the insurance companies to lower premiums,’ that’s what connects.”

“People want to make sure they have a good job, decent healthcare, that they can retire with dignity and that they know that the future is better for their children and grandchildren,” Donnelly said. “When we talk about those things, we have success in the Midwest.”

Donnelly, who was first elected to Congress in 2006, served three terms in the House before successfully running for the Senate in 2012 on a pro-auto bailout platform. His victory was additionally secured by Republican opponent Richard Mourdock, then-Indiana state treasurer, saying pregnancy from rape was “something that God intended.”

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is showing yet again that she isn’t one to shy away from snapping back at her critics, even if it’s from a member of her own party.

In a recent CNN interview, outgoing Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., expressed confusion about why Ocasio-Cortez has become so popular among Democrats, saying, “I’m a little confused why she’s the thing.”

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted her dismay with that wording on Saturday.

“Not sure why fmr Sen. McCaskill keeps going on TV to call me a ‘thing’ and ‘shiny object,’ but it’s pretty disappointing,” she said.

In that interview, McCaskill admitted she doesn’t know Ocasio-Cortez personally but said the 29-year-old was a “good example” of a “bright shiny new object” that shocked the political world by defeating a very experienced Democratic congressman.

Ocasio-Cortez won against Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in June during the primary race. She then beat her Republican opponent, Anthony Pappas, in the general election and will represent New York’s 14th Congressional District in the next Congress.

Meanwhile, after more than a decade in the Senate, McCaskill lost her re-election bid to Republican Josh Hawley last month.

Ocasio-Cortez pinned that defeat on McCaskill’s willingness to occasionally embrace President Trump in a state that Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016. “McCaskill promised she’d ‘100% back Trump up’ on his anti-immigrant rhetoric & lost. In MO, almost all progressive ballot issues won,” she said on Twitter.

The mention of successful liberal initiatives seemed to be a tacit comeback at McCaskill advising Ocasio-Cortez to be cautious in pushing liberal policies that impact Americans in parts of the country that are not receptive to the priorities of Democrats.

“I hope she also realizes that the parts of the country that are rejecting the Democratic Party, like a whole lot of white working class voters, need to hear about how their work is going to be respected, and the dignity of their jobs, and how we can really stick to issues that we can actually accomplish something on,” McCaskill said. “The rhetoric is cheap. Getting results is a lot harder.”

McCaskill isn’t the only outgoing Democrat who cautioned against a hard-left agenda in the next Congress.

Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly told CNN that Democrats will “start losing the people in my state” if “Medicare for all,” an issue championed by Ocasio-Cortez, is sought after too zealously.