‘A lot of folks feel like we’ve lost our way.’
M idway through the Democratic National Committee’s leadership election forum last weekend, Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart asked candidates whether they believed racism and misogyny played into Vice President Kamala Harris’s electoral defeat. Every single hand shot up.
“You all passed,” Capehart said.
For many Democrats, this unanimous show of hands from DNC chair candidates perfectly crystallized one of many existential problems national Democrats face in remaking their unpopular brand after such a brutal election loss — an obsession with identity politics that is wildly out of step with millions of swing voters who determine presidential elections.
Major challenges lie ahead. Three weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term, congressional Democrats in Washington are struggling to develop a coherent message to pierce through the president’s every executive order, policy change, and cabinet nominee.
“My Democratic friends are in disarray. I don’t think they know how to respond,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy (R., La.). He told National Review that if he were in the business of giving them advice, he’d tell them to talk to the 42nd president. “Bill Clinton was a master” who can “read the American people pretty well.”
“I would sit down, get him to come and talk to me,” Kennedy said, “and explain in his judgment why the loon wing of the Democratic Party is going to destroy the party.”
The first task for Democrats is settling on a clear and persuasive message. From firing inspectors general and pausing federal grants to dismantling USAID and proposing that the U.S. federal government take control of the Gaza Strip, Trump’s flood-the-zone strategy has left Democrats feeling confused about what to prioritize as they gear up for the 2026 midterms. Not to mention that with a Republican trifecta in Washington this Congress, Democrats are left powerless for the first two years of the second Trump administration.
“A lot of folks feel like we’ve lost our way, and we don’t know exactly the best way to go to push back on Trump,” said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina-based Democratic strategist. “I do think Democrats are starting to get their sea legs.”
In many ways, this post-election soul-searching conversation continues to revolve around two central questions: Is reflexive opposition to everything Trump does or says a smart political strategy this time around? And what core issues ought Democrats prioritize as they approach the next election cycle?
One network of liberal donors associated with the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge sought to answer these questions behind closed doors last weekend at a ritzy hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., where deep-pocketed attendees engaged in off-the-record conversations about how to win elections again. The list of retreat speakers included former Biden official and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin, and Jim Messina, a Democratic strategist who ran Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.
Effective minority opposition is a skill, said Pat Dennis, president of the group’s super PAC arm, American Bridge 21st Century. “You don’t respond to every little thing,” he said in a post-retreat interview with National Review. “You pick a limited number of critical areas that are broad enough to basically encompass the totality of what’s going on.”
While his organization is still “workshopping” what the different buckets of target issues should be, he believes Democrats would be smart to prioritize health care, the economy, and the various ways in which Trump is reshaping the federal government.
“You take all the chaos that’s coming down the pike at you, and you organize it into very clear, very serious, very engaging buckets,” he said. “And then everything that happens isn’t a new event that you need to react to. It’s a proof point to what you’ve already been saying.”
Meanwhile in Washington, some Democrats suggest that the onus is on Republican lawmakers to act as a barrier against their president’s more controversial ideas.
“It’s on Senate Republicans to try to help to save our democracy,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.). “We’re the minority. Senate Republicans have an obligation to push back.”
As they continue to wade through the wreckage of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s brutal 2024 election loss, a growing chorus of Democratic strategists and elected officials believe that the party must reorient its focus around affordability. That means hammering the Trump administration on tariff threats, the high price of eggs, and working to renew the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Others are directing their ire at Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) czar Elon Musk, along with a slate of other cabinet nominees whom they describe as direct threats to democratic institutions. On Wednesday evening and into the wee hours of Thursday morning, for example, Senate Democrats took shifts on the Senate floor in a rare overnight session to hold up Russ Vought’s nomination to serve as Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director. Unfortunately for Democrats, Senate Republicans confirmed him Thursday evening in a party-line vote.
Republicans have enjoyed watching the chaos unfold from afar.
“The Democrats wake up every single morning, they jump in their electric vehicle, and they drive to the freak-out store, and then they go shopping down the aisles of the freak-out store, and they pick an item to freak out about, and then they try to sell that to their constituents,” said Senator Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio). But this strategy hasn’t worked, he said. “So, what they do is they go back every morning, like Groundhog Day, to the same freak-out store, and to just find a different issue.”