Democrats are divided on the seriousness of policy issues after the defeat.
NEW YORK– Almost a month after devastating election loss that exposed cracks in the very foundations of their party, Democrats remain deeply divided over the extent of their policy problem — or even if they have one.
A number of Democratic leaders downplay the strength of Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as the inevitable result of an inflation-fueled anti-presidential backlash that has shaped elections around the world. But others are convinced that the Democratic Party is facing an acute crisis that requires an urgent overhaul of its branding, messaging and economic policies.
Asset swept all the battlefield states on November 5, thus becoming the first Republican candidate to win the national popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Yet nearly half the country voted against him. While final votes are still being counted in some places, Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6 percentage points. He won the seven swing states by about 760,000 combined votes out of more than 151 million votes cast nationwide.
“The glass is half full. It was close. If we got 2 or 3 percent more American voters, that would have led to victories from the presidency,” says Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who leads a group called Governors Save Democracy.
But for Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Labor-Farmer Party and candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee next year, the election represents “a damning indictment” of the Democratic Party.
“People don’t believe that the Democratic Party is fighting for them or their families and that it cares about their lives,” Martin told the Associated Press. “We lost ground with almost every group except affluent households and college-educated voters. »
The internal debate over the health of the party comes at a critical time.
Trump will return to the White House on January 20, claiming the mandate to enact a Drama program “Make America Great Again” led by the mass expulsion of millions of illegal immigrants in the country; an overhaul of the federal departments of Health, Education and Justice, as well as significant tariffs on imports that threaten to strain the U.S. economy and international alliances.
Democrats, however diminished and divided, constitute the only organized resistance to Trump and his emboldened MAGA allies. But for now, at least, the Democratic Party has no leader and no agreement on what policy problems need to be solved or how to solve them.
Many Democratic groups and leaders are conducting post-election analysis to better understand what went wrong on November 5, but few are working together. And already, some worry that disparate postmortem analyzes are producing competing recommendations that may be lost in the rush to leave the pain of 2024 behind.
Priorities USA, one of the Democratic Party’s leading super PACs, is expected to unveil its post-election findings this week. The group will, among other things, recommend that Democrats better listen to voters rather than pollsters, while proposing a more forward-looking, positive alternative to Trump’s MAGA movement.
If they don’t make significant changes, according to a preview of this briefing, Priorities believes there is no guarantee that key elements of the Democratic base — particularly young people and voters of color — will return to party in the next elections.
Some of the loudest voices calling for sweeping changes represent the party’s far-left wing, which is often ignored by establishment Democrats who control the party’s message, strategy and policy platform. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders angered some party leaders in the aftermath of the election with a scathing critique: “It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class finds that the working class has abandoned them.” abandoned. »
“While Democratic leaders defend the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders continued. “And they’re right.”
In the weeks that followed, California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders ally and potential future presidential candidate, urged his party to revisit its economic message. More specifically, he advocates for a “New Economic Deal” focused on creating well-paying middle-class jobs.
Khanna’s chief of staff, Marie Baldassarre, said some Democrats may rally around Khanna’s message and her willingness to share it on podcasts and right-wing outlets such as Fox News.
“I don’t know how you view this election and don’t worry. It’s time for change,” Baldassarre said. “Why don’t we do some work now? We didn’t find any resonance. »
Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, a former spokesman for the Justice Democrats and the Uncommit group who criticized Joe Biden’s nomination in the primaries, said Harris’ defeat revealed that the party “has a major problem with ‘hemorrhaging of the working class, lack of information and lack of information’. -college voters.
He notes that some Democratic leaders responded with a collective shrug.
“A lot of people at the highest levels of the party feel pretty lost,” Shahid said. “I am skeptical that they will be able to create the kind of coalition they need for transformative change in our lifetime. »
The national committee next elections to choose a new leader serves as a litmus test for the party leadership.
The DNC is expected to elect a new chair in February after a series of four candidate forums in January, according to an internal memo released last week. It remains to be seen whether delegates will welcome a high-profile outsider or an insider more familiar with the complex workings of the party’s political apparatus.
Few are calling for radical changes.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler, who announced his candidacy for DNC chair on Sunday, said Democrats need to adopt a new communications strategy to connect with voters who aren’t paying close attention to the policy. He praised Trump for his mastery of the media landscape and suggested his own party pay more attention to apolitical and right-wing podcasts and news networks.
Wikler was skeptical, however, that the 2024 election results signal a political crisis for his party.
“What we saw was a slight shift to the right, driven primarily by the people most affected by inflation, who were paying the least attention to the news,” he said. “This does not suggest a permanent shift toward Trump. I think there’s a real opportunity for Democrats to regain some ground.”
He added: “I also think there is a strong risk that Trump will do more than repeat history and become a disaster. »
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Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan.
