After the euphoria: what now for the Democrats?

The Democrats are “euphoric” in the wake of last week’s midterm elections, said Victoria Guida on Politico, but the truth is that the results “delivered a warning” to them as well as the Republicans. “People are angry about the cost of living, and they want their representatives to actually do something about it.”

Having captured both the House and Senate, Democrats now need to show dissatisfied voters that they can respond. “Excuses will only go so far in 2028 if the electorate is still mad.” The party must decide its “game plan” for two years of divided government. Is it worth drawing up partisan legislation and sending it to the president’s desk, only to see it vetoed? Or would voters respond better if the party worked with Donald Trump to pass more modest, compromise measures? And can Democrats “even agree enough” among themselves “to advance legislation”?

Populist momentum

They must be bold, said Michael Tomasky in The New Republic. Last week’s elections demolished the conventional wisdom that the party can only prosper by running cautious, corporate-friendly centrists. Both James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan ran as “aggressive economic populists”. One of Talarico’s campaign riffs was that “the only minority destroying America is the billionaires”. Democrats who speak like that aren’t supposed to win Senate seats.

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Yet both did, despite their opponents spending some $200 million on efforts to vilify them. The party should capitalise on its momentum, agreed Aaron Regunberg in the same publication. It has a wide array of popular economic policies at its disposal: anti-price-gouging laws to bring down the cost of energy and food; excess-profits tax on Big Oil; paid sick leave; a congressional stock-trading ban. “What is the downside to daring Trump to veto bills like these that are supported by 70%-80% of Americans?”

Overreach risk

Voters backed Democrat candidates in order to rebuke Trump, said The Washington Post, but it’s clear from many ballot measures last week that they “aren’t sold on left-wing economic policy prescriptions”. Voters in North Carolina, for instance, elected a Democratic senator, but also approved measures to cap income tax. The same thing happened in Iowa. Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor, but voted to ban affirmative action in state institutions.

The midterms weren’t an endorsement of the Democrats, agreed The Wall Street Journal. The party won just 29% approval in the latest NBC poll, to the Republicans’ 38%. Investigations into the murky finances of the Trump administration would be welcome, as would closer policy scrutiny in general, but Democrats must beware of overreaching. If they lurch to the Left and waste time on, say, another doomed impeachment drive, it “could lead voters to conclude in 2028 that the post-Trump Republican Party doesn’t look so bad after all”.

Pragmatic leadership

The Democrats could learn from Zohran Mamdani, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Many feared the worst when the avowed socialist became New York mayor last year, but it hasn’t led to a Marxist takeover. Mamdani retained Jessica Tisch, a pro-Israel billionaire hated by the hard-left, as police commissioner, and cut the red tape that slows private home building. He has dropped some progressive ambitions, such as free buses, and put others, like universal daycare, on a more gradual track. While still a fierce critic of Israel, he has unveiled an initiative to combat antisemitism.

Yes, he has stuck with the “goofy notion” of state-run grocery stores, but this supposed socialist firebrand has largely prioritised “humdrum municipal governance”. Democrats have long sought a pragmatic leader who can inspire the Left while “ignoring the incessant demands of progressive activists”. They might want to look to New York.