On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump was re-elected President of the United States of America. In retrospect, this result has come to be seen as an inevitability, obscuring that millions of Americans had expected an entirely different outcome until the end — myself very much included. I know I’m also not alone in confusion and disappointment at the lackluster response of Chuck Schumer and other Democratic Party leadership to the new lows of this Trump Administration’s disregard (and, in some cases, apparent contempt) for American values, interests, and institutions. But to find its optimal bearing from here, the Democratic Party must develop a solid sense of where it went wrong — and I can’t help but feel the currently dominant too-moderate and too-“woke” explanations fall short of capturing the true reasons for the party’s defeat last November — to help the party determine where it goes from here.
Firstly, I think it’s important to consider the factual results of the November elections and question some of our conclusions from them. For instance, it has practically become consensus to describe Trump’s performance as a “landslide,” but this deeply misrepresents the scale of his victory. Trump’s victory in the national popular vote — despite feeling like a shock to many — was the weakest since 2000, a year when the candidate who won the popular vote didn’t even win the election. The idea that certain states or demographics have experienced a unique swing towards Republicans is similarly misleading; Latino voters, for example, did swing towards Republicans relative to 2020, but voted for George Bush 20 years ago in greater numbers than for Trump this year. These mentalities — reinforced by mainstream media — that inflate the Republican Party’s victories have subdued many previously outspoken Democrats, leaving the party’s mindset weaker than it needs to be. Further, when searching for a reason behind their slippage among previously reliable voter groups, Democrats should look no further than this exact sort of monolithic analysis. This reductive thinking isn’t just wrong; it’s limiting Democrats’ optimism and thus their ability to strategize effectively for future elections.
Next, Democrats should take a look at where their recent victories have come from — because they have seen considerable success over the last year. Democrats won major statewide races in five of the six swing states where they were held alongside the presidential election, and generally improved their performance among high-propensity, more affluent, predominantly white communities. In 2023, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky won re-election over a Trump-endorsed Republican opponent — and he did it without deviating to the left or right relative to standard Democratic stances. Governor Beshear was re-elected by one of the reddest states in the nation, and he did it while protecting transgender kids and also without declaring himself a socialist. Instead, Beshear’s personal popularity — paired with the success of his government in resolving substantive issues like responding to flooding in 2022 — carried him to victory in a state where Republicans hold all other statewide offices. Democratic-aligned state supreme court candidates continue to triumph in swing-state races, while reproductive rights and minimum wage popular vote initiatives have won in states as red as Missouri and Kansas. The Democratic Party’s brand might be damaged, but it is running on winning issues.
Democrats should turn to the examples of Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Evan McMullin in Utah — independent candidates, supported by Democrats, who came impressively close to winning Senate elections in generally Republican electorates. Examining Democrats’ successes reveals that positioning themselves as outsiders to the political status quo (which has historically thrust Democrats like Barack Obama as well as Republicans like Donald Trump into office) can help bridge the gap between the Democratic Party’s low approval ratings and the clear popularity of their policies more than shifting course on those issues ever could. To divorce their optics from the perception of their politics as ineffectual and corrupt, perhaps it’s time for Democrats in competitive races to abandon lip service to the national party.
For the first time in 20 years, the Democratic Party must grapple with being the less popular of the two in presidential politics. But between the election’s actual results, Democrats’ recent successes, and examples of more successful optics for the party, there is no reason for Democrats to give up hope. Democrats don’t need to moderate like the unsuccessful recent example of California Governor Gavin Newsom, nor should they abandon their current positions for a more radical approach. Democrats can and must invest in the optics of popularity and play to their strengths on the issues, but we must first resolve the party’s confused sense of direction. We must accept the political appeal of the outsider image without forsaking consistency in our policymaking, unlike Republicans’ capitulation to Trump on isolationist foreign and economic policy. Where we go from here isn’t so different from where we are now. Once we realize that, stay the course on most policy issues, and improve their image in other ways, Democrats will get our chance to lead once again.
