NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a month after a devastating election loss that exposed cracks in the very foundation of their party, Democrats remain deeply divided over the extent of their political problem — or even if they have one.
A number of Democratic leaders are downplaying the strength of Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as the inevitable result of an inflation-fueled anti-incumbent backlash that shaped elections worldwide. But others are convinced that the Democratic Party is facing an acute crisis that requires an urgent overhaul of its brand, message and economic policies.
Trump swept every battleground state on Nov. 5, 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. With the final votes still being counted in some places, Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6 percentage points. He carried the seven top swing states by about 760,000 votes combined out of more than 151 million cast nationwide.
“The glass is half full. It was close. If we get another 2% or 3% of American voters, it would have successfully led to victories from the presidency on down,” says Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is leading a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
But for Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Labor-Farmer Party and a candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee next year, the election represented “a damning indictment” for the Democratic Party.
“People do not believe that the Democratic Party is fighting for them or for their families or gives a damn about their lives,” Martin told The Associated Press. “We lost ground with almost every group except wealthy households and college-educated voters.”
The internal debate over the health of the party comes at a critical moment.
Trump will return to the White House on Jan. 20, claiming a mandate to enact a dramatic “Make America Great Again” agenda led by the mass deportation of millions of immigrants in the country illegally; an overhaul of the federal departments of health, education and justice, and major import tariffs that threaten to strain the U.S. economy and international alliances alike.
Democrats, even diminished and divided, stand as 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 the political problems that need to be fixed or how to fix them.
Many Democratic groups and leaders are working through post-election analyses to better understand what went wrong on Nov. 5, but few are working together. And already, some fear that the disparate post mortems will produce competing recommendations likely to be lost in a rush to leave the pain of 2024 behind.
Priorities USA, one of the Democratic Party’s leading super PACs, is set to unveil its post-election findings this week. The group will recommend, among other things, that Democrats do a better job listening to voters instead of pollsters, while offering a more forward-looking positive alternative to Trump’s MAGA movement.
If they do not make significant changes, according to a preview of that briefing, 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 party’s far-left wing, which is often ignored by establishment Democrats who control the party’s messaging, strategy and policy platform. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders irked some party leaders the day after the election with a scathing critique: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
“While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders continued. “And they’re right.”
In the weeks since, California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders ally and a potential future presidential contender, has been urging his party to overhaul its economic message. Specifically, he’s advocating for a “New Economic Deal” focused on creating high-paying jobs for the middle class.
Khanna’s chief of staff, Marie Baldassarre, said that some Democrats may be coming around to Khanna’s message and his willingness to share it on podcasts and right-leaning outlets such as Fox News.
“I don’t know how you look at this election and don’t take a beat. This is the time to change,” Baldassarre said. “Why wouldn’t we do some work right now? We didn’t resonate.”
Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, a former spokesperson for Justice Democrats and the “Uncommitted” group that was critical of Joe Biden’s primary nomination, said Harris’ loss revealed that the party “has a major problem with bleeding working-class, low-information, non-college voters.”
He notes that some Democratic leaders have responded with a collective shrug.
“Many of the people at the highest levels of the party feel pretty lost,” Shahid said. “I’m skeptical that they’ll be able to create the kind of coalition they need for transformative change over our lifetimes.”
The national committee’s upcoming election to select a new leader serves as a litmus test for the party’s direction.
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 unclear if delegates will embrace a high-profile outsider or an insider more familiar with the intricate workings of the party’s political apparatus.
Few are calling for wholesale changes.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, who announced his candidacy for DNC chair on Sunday, said Democrats must embrace a new communication strategy to connect with voters who don’t pay close attention to politics. He complimented Trump’s command of the media landscape and suggested that his own party pay more attention to non-political and right-leaning 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 narrow shift to the right driven the most by the people most affected by inflation, who were paying the least attention to the news,” he said. “That does not suggest a permanent shift towards Trump. I think that there’s a very real opportunity for Democrats to win back ground.”
He added: “I also think that Trump is very likely to more than repeat history and be a disaster.”
Cappelletti reported from Lansing, Michigan.