The big question is where the party goes next after Trump cut deep into the Democratic coalition, winning support from working class voters and racial minorities on his way to a second term.
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is one of only a handful who tried to challenge President Biden in a 2024 primary that was effectively squashed by party leaders, said Democrats have “learned very little from 2016.”
He said Democrats allowed themselves to be consumed by left-wing sloganeering and have become too insular, expelling anyone who doesn't pass ideological purity tests on quixotic social issues, while ignoring voter sentiments on border security for too long.
“I believe Democrats have become, in many cases, a party centered on imposition and condemnation instead of invitation,” he told The Nation.
And Phillips said Democrats have allowed themselves to be defined by their opposition to Trump, rather than putting out a forward-looking vision that voters find compelling.
“Condemnation is a very poor strategy for success in politics. Casting that same shadow on all of those that support him is just an absurd and destructive approach," the Minnesota Democrat said.
Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told Semafor: “I personally think that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo.”
Democrats, Slotkin said, need to draw their language from “the assembly line” instead of “the faculty lounge.”
Meanwhile, a handful of House Democrats who won tough races in Trump country say the next iteration of the Democratic Party must follow their lead.
Among them: Reps. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Vicente Gonzales (D-Texas).
The Hill’s Mike Lillis writes: “As Democratic leaders conduct an election postmortem, the front-liners are urging colleagues to take a page from their playbook, which features a heavy focus on kitchen-table economics while largely avoiding the culture-war battles that were a drag on the party on Nov. 5.”
