NEW YORK — Almost a month later a huge election loss As they exposed cracks in their party’s core, Democrats remain deeply divided over the extent of their political problem, if at all.
Some Democratic leaders are underestimating the strength of the Democrats Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris it shaped elections around the world as the inevitable consequence of a backlash against inflation-driven rule. But others are convinced that the Democratic Party is facing a serious crisis that requires an urgent overhaul of its brand, message and economic policies.
Trump he scoured all the battlefields on November 5, becoming First Republican candidate to win the national popular vote In 2004 from George W. Bush. However, almost half of the country voted against it. As final ballots are still being counted in some places, Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6 percentage points. He garnered about 760,000 votes in the seven major swing states out of the 151 million cast nationwide.
“The glass is half full. It was close. If we can get another 2% or 3% of the American electorate, it would successfully achieve a presidential victory,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who leads the group Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
But for Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Labor-Farmer Party and a candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee next year, the election was an “insulting indictment” of the Democratic Party.
“People don’t believe that the Democratic Party is fighting for them or their families or giving a damn about their lives,” Martin told The Associated Press. “We lost to almost every group except wealthy households and college voters.”
The internal debate over the party’s health comes at a critical time.
Trump will return to the White House on January 20, proclaiming the mandate to put into force a The dramatic “Make America Great Again” agenda presided over the mass deportation of millions of immigrants in the country; massive import tariffs that threaten to overhaul the federal health, education and justice departments and strain the US economy and international alliances.
The Democrats, though diminished and divided, are the only organized resistance to Trump and MAGA’s emboldened allies. But for now, at least, the Democratic Party has no leader and no agreement about the political problems that need to be solved or how to solve them.
Many Democratic groups and leaders are working through post-election analysis to misunderstand what happened on November 5th, but few are working together. And already, some fear that different post-mortems will produce competing recommendations that will be lost in a rush to put the pain of 2024 behind us.
Priorities USA, one of the Democratic Party’s top super PACs, will announce its post-election results this week. The group will recommend, among other things, that Democrats do a better job of listening to voters instead, offering a positive alternative to Trump’s MAGA movement going forward.
If they don’t make significant changes, according to a preview of that information, Priorities believes there is no guarantee that key elements of the Democratic base — especially young people and voters of color — will return to the party in future elections.
Some of the loudest voices calling for dramatic changes represent the far left wing of the party, which is often ignored by the Democratic establishment that controls the party’s messaging, strategy and policy platform. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont angered some party leaders with a sharp critique the day after the election: “It should come as no surprise to find that a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working classes has abandoned the working classes.”
“While Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders continued. “And they’re right.”
In the weeks since, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a Sanders ally and potential future presidential candidate, has been urging his party to revise its economic message. Specifically, he favors a “New Economic Deal” aimed at creating high-paying middle-class jobs.
Khanna’s chief of staff, Marie Baldassarre, said some Democrats are seeking to share Khanna’s message and his willingness to listen to podcasts and right-wing media outlets such as Fox News.
“I don’t know how you see these elections and you have not taken a hit from me. This is the time to change,” said Baldassar. “Why don’t we do a job right now? We had no response.”
Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, a former spokesman for Justice Democrats and the “No Compromise” group, which was critical of Joe Biden’s primary nomination, said Harris’ loss showed the party has “a big problem with bleeding working-class, low-information, college voters.”
He noted that some democratic leaders responded with a collective shrug.
“Many people at the highest levels of the party feel quite lost,” Shahid said. “I’m skeptical that they will be able to build the kind of coalition they need for transformative change in our lifetime.”
of the National Committee upcoming elections to choose a new leader it serves as a litmus test for party management.
The DNC is expected to select a new chair in February after four candidate forums in January, according to an internal memo released last week. It is not clear whether delegates will choose a high-profile outsider or an insider familiar with the intricate workings of the party’s political apparatus.
Few are asking for wholesale changes.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler, who announced his candidacy for the DNC chair on Sunday, said Democrats need to adopt a new communications strategy to reach voters who don’t pay attention to politics. He touted Trump’s command of the media landscape and suggested his party should focus more on apolitical, right-wing podcasts and news networks.
Wikler was skeptical, however, that the results of the 2024 election represent a political crisis for his party.
“What we saw was a narrow shift to the right, driven most by the people most affected by inflation, who paid the least attention to the news,” he said. “This does not suggest a permanent change to Trump. I think the Democrats have a very real chance to win the seat again.”
He added: “I also think that Trump is more likely than not to repeat history and be a disaster.”
___
Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan.
