The bitterness of Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat and Donald Trump’s victories in two of the past three presidential races have Democrats seriously questioning their policies and their message.

They’ll be re-examining their messengers, too, and 2024 will haunt 2028, determining who’s in contention for the party’s presidential nomination and upending the Democratic bench as it existed before Nov. 5.

Trump beat two women — Harris this time, Hillary Clinton before — and many Democrats partly blame sexism. That could make them reluctant to pick another woman, even one as compelling as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

The party’s struggles with working-class voters could point it toward someone positioned to attract them. Keep an eye on a comer like U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine who just won his Senate race in Arizona as Trump beat Harris there by more than five percentage points.

But I think an even bigger dynamic should — and could — come into play. The party ought to rethink its allegiance to tradition and etiquette, creating opportunities for candidates who aren’t obvious choices, who don’t fit any mold, whose résumés (here a lawyer, there a lawyer) don’t read like anagrams of one another’s.

Clinton was a proper choice, her long history with the party and her formidable C.V. overriding concerns about how well she connected with voters. That didn’t pay off.