This Won’t Be Easy for Democrats
James Talarico talked a lot during his campaign about the so-called wilderness—as in, the electoral wasteland and morale morass that Democrats had been languishing in since President Trump’s reelection, in 2024. In Texas, this felt like something of a permanent condition. Talarico preferred a more sanguine interpretation of wilderness, something I’ve thought about after he became the first Texas Democrat to win a Senate race since 1988. The wilderness, he said from early on in his campaign, could in fact prove a fertile ground for reinvention.
“There is an opportunity to redefine the Democratic Party,” Talarico told me. “And you can’t do that if the brand is super set, or if there’s a strong leader at the top of the party.” This was a little over a year ago, and we were sitting in the lobby bar of an Arlington, Texas, hotel. “The wilderness,” Talarico continued, “is where new ideas and new leaders and new movements come forth.” At the time, I was inclined to dismiss this as a rationalization from another one of those fool’s-gold Democratic hopefuls in Texas. In retrospect, maybe Talarico was onto something.
If nothing else, the Democrats’ midterm rout of Trump and his supine coalition of Republicans would seem to put to rest, at least for now, the long-running discussion of Democrats as a party out of touch, ill-defined, lacking in purpose, and perpetually ambling in this “wilderness.” I admit that I participated in a fair amount in this Democratic-doldrums discourse myself, including in an opus about the party adrift that ran in February, which now feels like a decade ago. I stand by that story. It was true then, and had been for nearly four years, if you start the clock with the 2022 midterms and the disastrous denouement of the Biden years.
[Read: Democrats will likely disappoint voters soon]
The sheer magnitude of Tuesday’s drubbing of Republicans should provide an antidote to the wallowing that Democrats can be prone to. It’s impossible not to see the geographic reach of their victories, the generational ascent of so many potential stars, and the stunning margins that Democrats ran up across the country and not conclude that the party has legitimate reason to feel good about itself. This was a bona fide “thumpin,’” as another unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, called his own midterm debacle 20 years ago.
The requisite chest-thumpin’ from Democrats commenced immediately on Tuesday night. “We have five words for the American people,” Chuck Schumer, the likely next Senate majority leader, proclaimed to reporters as the returns poured in. “Relief is on the way.”
Here are five more words for Democrats to keep in mind: Enjoy this while it lasts.
The “what next” of this discussion is now at hand. And it’s pretty clear that Democrats should avoid the obvious trap of thinking that their victory means they’ve magically solved their “brand problem,” “trust problem,” or “working-class-voter problem,” among various others. The initial sense of punch-drunk euphoria will yield to questions about what the party’s sprawling new legislative majorities should focus on, how they should engage (if at all) with Trump and Republicans, what ideological framework (progressive versus moderate) they should embrace, and who should lead them going into 2028. Political victory laps can be fun but fleeting, especially for governing tribes famously given to angst and discord. Inevitably, the second-guessing and hand-wringing will return, and probably soon.
In politics, the simplest explanation for an election result is usually the smartest one (and less time-consuming than reading those endless postmortems). Tuesday’s result can be overwhelmingly ascribed to a repudiation of Trump, rather than revealing anything definitive about the diverse assortment of Democrats who prevailed. The political analyst Charlie Cook, of The Cook Political Report, gave preliminary voice to this notion when he predicted in September that this midterm would represent a “red undertow” rather than a blue wave. The results would be driven more by revulsion toward Trump and his various legislative lickspittles than by any dramatic reinvention by Democrats—or by some sudden mass affection for them by the electorate.
This was rendered vividly in an NBC News poll released just before the election, in which voters declared themselves just not that into Democrats, despite their massive advantages leading into Election Day. Only 29 percent of respondents said that they viewed the party favorably, while 38 percent viewed Republicans positively. About half of the people surveyed said that they held a negative view of both parties.
Trump will be around as the Democrats’ go-to foil for only so much longer. He has been a turnout machine for them as well as for Republicans. He has defined the GOP for the past decade, and has also defined the Democrats in opposition. It is not hard to imagine that a Republican president who did not, say, capriciously impose tariffs, start unpopular wars, or talk incessantly about building a White House ballroom would have had a considerably better midterm experience than Trump and the GOP just did. And far fewer Americans would have ever heard of Senators-Elect Talarico, Annie Andrews (South Carolina), or Adam Hamilton (Kansas).
What should also be clear to Democrats is that their time is limited. Again and again, voters have shown punishing impatience with parties that don’t deliver for them quickly, especially on such close-to-the-bone economic issues as inflation. Americans have not hesitated to swing back and forth between the two parties. When was the last election, anyway, in which voters have not been described as “angry,” “frustrated,” or “fed-up?”
[Read: ‘We did this for this man?’]
In the short term, at least, Democrats can break out their Nutter Butters and enjoy the crack-up on the other side, where the center of political drama and division in America has shifted decisively since Tuesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he won’t run for minority leader, setting up a potentially bitter race to succeed him; Vice President Vance blamed Tuesday’s pummeling on the Iran war (wait, whose idea was that?); and Trump chalked up the defeat to not being on the ballot himself (effectively blaming Republicans who were).
Democrats suddenly have real leverage in Washington. Trump is, to say the least, not easily humbled and not much for self-examination or course correction (to wit, he spent part of yesterday showing off his in-progress White House ballroom). He is, however, a survivor, and will take what lifelines are available. Lo and behold: “I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, believe it or not,” Trump said on Fox. “I’ve already spoken to some of them,” he added. Presumably, one of these people was Schumer, who indicated Tuesday that he would be open to working with Trump, so long as he “will actually change his ways.” It certainly beats the wilderness.
Yesterday, I reached out to Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, whose arrival in Washington last year was marked by infighting at the DNC, a fundraising drought, and unflattering stories about him in the press—my own among them. I’d made him the hapless head of Democratic doom in my article in February, characterizing the chairman’s demeanor as one of “resting dread face,” a description that he presumably did not appreciate. So after the election, I invited him to take an oratorical victory lap on my head. He demurred, except for this brief “update” from DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin, via text: “Ken Martin has turned the frown upside down on his resting dread face.”