Five days after last month’s election Senator Chris Murphy has delivered a damning verdict on his party’s performance. “That is a disaster,” said the Connecticut Democrat. write On T has lost his majority in the Senate and appears unlikely to retake the House. Murphy concluded that Democrats have lost too much touch with American voters: ‘We’re beyond small fixes’
Other prominent Democrats It is seen that there has been a similarly widespread rejection of the party brand. “It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party that abandons the working class will see the working class abandon them,” Senator Bernie Sanders wrote in a statement issued less than 24 hours after the polls closed. During the time of such a reaction Millions of votes have not yet been counted. And many of the nation’s closest congressional races still haven’t been called. Now a clearer picture of the election has emerged. It complicates the debate over whether Democrats need to reinvent themselves. And are voters really abandoning them?
Trump’s vote margin narrowed to about 1.5 percentage points, one of the narrowest margins in the past half century. and because some of the votes went to third-party and independent candidates. He thus lacked a majority vote nationwide. compared to governments in other positions in the world Democrats’ losses were slight.– and in their house receive The seat also leaves the GOP. The second-smallest majority in history.– Three Republican vacancies expected early next year will make passing Trump’s agenda even more difficult. And Democrats are in a strong position to retake the House in the midterm elections. Normally, the party in office has to struggle.
The final results prompted some in the party to push back against Murphy’s disastrous diagnosis of Sanders and others who said the Democratic brand was in tatters and needed to be fixed. Overhaul “If the brand of the Democratic Party is fundamentally destroyed and needs to be thrown away. This election would be a huge blow. And it wasn’t. It’s too close,” Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left, a democratic organizing group, told me. Another Democrat asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly. It states as follows: “We lost the election. We did not lose the country.”
In some areas the election looked like a red wave. Compared to four years ago The presidential vote swung to the right by about 10 points in some of the most populous blue states, including New York, California and New Jersey. But the down-ballot race makes a strong case for Democrats’ optimism. Party labels appear to be much less of an albatross for Democratic congressional candidates than they were in strong Republican years like 2010 and 2014. In this year’s Senate, though, Republicans Likan will flip four seats. But Democratic candidates won in four battleground states in which Kamala Harris won. Lost to Trump And according to David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, Democrats can only retake their majority in the House. Another 7,309 votes Across all three congressional districts
Democrats also hold their own in state legislative races. They won Wisconsin and destroyed the Republican majority in North Carolina. Even as they lose other areas, overall, the party retains significantly more power in state capitols than when Trump first took office in 2017. “There could be a red wave in states. And there aren’t any,” Democratic House Speaker Heather Williams said. The campaign committee told me that “I view this election as truly defying the odds.”
Democrats I spoke with last week were careful to defend their party’s voting performance. They fear they will be accused of minimizing Harris’ loss to criminal offenders in a race that many see as a referendum on American democracy. “The stakes are so high that even a few missteps are catastrophic,” Radjy acknowledged, “and the impact on our country. To our democracy and to people’s lives It’s really serious.” The party’s congressional victory was enough to make Rep. Susan. DelBene of Washington is serving a second term as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But she is careful not to declare any victory. “We did a lot of right things,” DelBene told me, “but we wanted to be in the majority. So there is still a lot more we can do.”
After seeing all the results Murphy told me he still considers the election a disaster for Democrats. His panic stems from the party’s mounting losses among working-class voters. which is the core of the Democrat Party That trend continues this year. And the party has lost significant traction with nonwhite voters in major cities. Murphy contends that the Democratic coalition has shrunk to the point where the party is no longer competitive enough in its ranks. Grab a majority He said the outlook in the Senate looks especially dire. with Democrats not holding any seats. firmly in red states anymore. Because of the defeat in Montana West Virginia and Ohio “morally and intellectually How can you continue to be the party of the working class and the poor? When each election Fewer are voting for you,” Murphy told me. “There will be real dishonesty and unreliability within our party. If we look at this latest election, too close to call or Good points and bad points–
Murphy believes Democrats should respond by embracing economic populism and welcoming those with conservative views on cultural issues like guns and immigration. and environment Some of the party’s successes last month agreed with him.
Sen. Pat Ryan won re-election in New York’s Hudson Valley district by 14 points, outpacing Harris by double digits. He attributes his victory to his focus on the affordability crisis in his district. And breaking with Democrats on issues like the border, the Democratic brand has become “toxic,” Ryan told me. “I feel the message is resounding from voters that in many places and with many candidates We are out of touch and in a bubble. and is not connected to the daily pressures, pain, struggles and challenges that most people face.”
Not every Democrat who wins a tough race does so by criticizing their own party, said Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat from Michigan. That’s 9 points ahead of Harris, who said voters in her district supported Trump seem to hate both sides equally. “They’re tired of politics,” McDonald Rivet told me. If this election should send a message to the Democratic Party I would have lost,” she said.
The party is still scouring election data for clues as to why its candidates polled better than the top of the ticket. And in some places more than others. The answer will likely determine whether the reboot that Murphy and Ryan support gains traction. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Radjy said, despite the Democrats’ catastrophic defeat last month. They were not as far from power as many initially thought.
