Next Year's Midterms Will Bring Undeserved— And Temporary— Good News For Congressional Democrats

Tragically, There Are No Blue Waves— Just Anti-Red Waves

Luckily, not as bad as Trump And MAGA Mike

The reputational damage to the country caused by Trump and his MAGA movement is breathtaking across most of the world… if not in Texas, Mississippi and Wyoming. I don’t remember the U.S. being this hated at the height of the Vietnam War— and take it from someone who was traveling the world in a VW van during that time, we were plenty hated. 

And the Democratic establishment still can’t fight its way out of a paper bag? Really? Even though, as we saw yesterday, it couldn’t be clearer that the only antidote to Trump’s hollow strongman populism is the real thing: a politics of solidarity, material improvement and universal dignity that can't be spun as elite condescension? The GOP wants the conversation to revolve around campus controversies and DEI memos because it distracts from the actual looting they’re facilitating at every level of government and what the party wants to accomplish for working families. When Democrats reduce themselves to defending symbolic diversity at the expense of structural justice, they’re playing the GOP’s game. But when they connect racial and gender justice to economic justice— when they make clear that the billionaire class uses division as a tool to keep everyone else scrambling— they can realign the debate on their own terms, something Shane Goldmacher is having trouble seeing them do. The party establishment can’t kick the image voters have of Republicans as “apex predators,” like lions, tigers and sharks— beasts that take what they want when they want it— and Democrats as tortoises, slugs or sloths: slow, plodding, passive… Communities that Democrats had come to count on for a generation or more— young people, Black voters, Latinos— all veered toward the right in 2024, some of them sharply.”

The Democratic Party’s tarnished image could not come at a more inopportune moment. In this era of political polarization, the national party’s brand is more important and influential than ever, often driving the outcomes of even the most local of races.

…The first challenge is that it is not just Republicans and independents who have soured on the Democratic Party. It is also Democrats themselves.

The Democratic base is aghast at the speed with which Trump is undermining institutions and reversing progressive accomplishments— and at the lack of resistance from congressional leaders. Primary challenges are on the rise headed into 2026, often along generational and ideological lines.

“There is fear, there is anxiety, and there are very real questions about the path forward— all of which I share,” said Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who is charged with recruiting candidates to help Democrats win back the House in 2026.

“We are losing support in vast swaths of the country, in rural America, in the Midwest, the places where I’m from,” Crow continued. “People that I grew up with who now support Donald Trump, who used to be Democrats. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have the support of these folks, other than we have pushed, in so many ways, these people away from our party.”

… [Anat] Shenker-Osorio, the Democratic researcher and messaging consultant who holds regular focus groups, said Democratic voters today craved more action and less self-reflection.

“Voters are hungry for people to actually stand up for them— or get caught trying,” she said, urging Democratic leaders to embrace the fight. “The party is doing a lot of navel-gazing and not enough full-belly acting.”

I don’t know that belly acting or belly aching or whatever she meant is what is called for. What we called “the politics of solidarity, material improvement and universal dignity” is… you know, what Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Summer Lee, Mark Pocan, Chris Deluzio, Ro Khanna, Jeff Merkley, Greg Casar, Delia Ramirez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar are working on— not to mention candidates like Randy Bryce, Lukas Ventouras, Emily Berge, Mike Sacks, Travis Terrell. Last night Terrell told us that “When Democrats take back control, we won’t just have work to do here at home rebuilding trust and repairing the wounds to our democracy. We’ll have a responsibility to the world. We need to send a clear message to our centuries-old allies and new alike that what happened under Trump will never be allowed to happen again. That the Democrat answer will never again be whimpers, and compromise with a traitorous party. In a global economy, even a nation as powerful as the United States cannot afford to stand alone. We rise by rebuilding trust, repairing alliances, and proving that American leadership will once again provide stability, not unpredictable chaos.”

Lukas Ventouras, the New Deal Democrat in Suffolk County taking on MAGA-aligned Nick LaLota, notes that “The Democratic Party's stock has never been so low. In the midst of an oligarchic takeover, and an administration rife with authoritarian impulses, the Democratic party remains less popular than our generally hated commander in chief. If this past election is any signifier, an election where change from the status quo was not just favored, it was demanded, during which time Democrats served the American people a steaming plate of establishment status quo politics, such as parading around with the Cheneys, then the Democrats are in big trouble. The American people yearn for an end to the robotic, prepackaged and soulless way the Democrats have been doing politics for decades, and for the American people, the anarchic and chaotic Trump vision was more appealing than the same old games the Democrats were trying to play. In order for the Democratic brand to be rejuvenated, Democrats must be real people. They must be more willing to engage, to act and feel like real people. Not only that, but they must articulate that they not only hear and see the pain felt by the American people, but to genuinely articulate how they plan to solve problems. They must stop being controlled by corporate cash and career advancement, and genuinely roll up their sleeves to tackle the issues we face as a country. Trust is difficult to attain, and easy to lose, and we, as Democrats, must earn the trust of the American people back by showing them we're serious about helping them.”

Yesterday, Dan Balz wrote that the Republicans’ big ugly tax-and-spend bill risks tanking lots of their reelection efforts. It should. They should lose all their seats, or half their seats. No one thinks that’ll happen. But will they lose their House majority? Probably… in the probable blue wave that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything the Democrats are doing.

The 2026 midterm elections are still far into the future, but Republicans are placing a big and risky bet that they can survive the coming attacks on President Donald Trump’s spending and tax cut bill and the potential impact of his erratic tariff policies. History is not on their side. “The Congressional Budget Office,” wrote Balz, “reports that those in the lowest 10 percent of the income scale would see their resources reduced while those in the highest 10 percent would see them increased. Various estimates say the measure would add about $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, a bitter pill for deficit-conscious Republicans. The bond markets have responded poorly.

[T]he first volleys were sounded this past week, and two veterans of political campaigns were quick to join the fray: Republican Karl Rove, who helped guide George W. Bush to a pair of presidential victories, and Democrat Rahm Emanuel, whose résumé includes service in the House and as White House chief of staff, mayor of Chicago and ambassador to Japan.

Emanuel, writing in the Washington Post, said Republicans have handed Democrats a political gift, if they can take advantage of it. The pending legislation, he wrote, “should be understood by the public in one phrase: ‘tax cuts for the wealthy, health-care cuts for the many.’ The simplicity of that binary is its virtue.”

The Trump presidency and congressional Republicans, he argued, “are beacons of the three C’s: corruption, chaos and cruelty,” adding that the new bill “is the ripest opportunity we’ll have to lift the fog that can define 2026.” The fog, in this case, is the nonstop flurry of actions by the president that are so many and so often that the public can barely digest it all.

Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal, warned Republicans not to duck a debate about Medicaid. He said they should lean in. “GOP silence will make the inevitable Democratic assault more powerful,” he wrote. Republicans, he said, should promote the new work requirements, which he said are popular with most Americans, and hammer Democrats for failing to root out fraud in the program.

Many Republican strategists share Rove’s view about being aggressive. “GOP needs to go on unified offense— now, do not wait for 2026,” Republican strategist Kristin Davison wrote in an email. “There’s good stuff in the big, beautiful bill, things Americans voted for, and there are positives on the tariff front. Democrats still don’t have their act together— it’s a gift for GOP.”

Offering a counter, Republican pollster Whit Ayres sounded worried about the way the landscape looks at this point. “Let’s see,” he wrote in a message. “Higher prices as a result of tariffs, and millions of Trump voters losing their Medicaid-funded health care. I think even the Democrats might be able to do something with that.”

… House Democrats need to flip just three seats to reclaim the majority, and the average shift of House seats in midterm elections is well above that number. But it’s also true that just three Republicans are sitting in districts won by former vice president Kamala Harris last year. Also, the overall number of competitive seats has declined compared with a decade or two ago. This points to the role that trench warfare, and not just the mood of the country, will play in the battle for control of the House.

Republicans can always count on the New Dems who control the DCCC— this time out-of-touch multimillionaire Suzan DelBene— to nominate and support awful candidates who can only win in a wave election— and are sure to lose their seats in subsequent elections after disappointing and disillusioning their constituents. That 2006 election mentioned above? Nationally the Democrats beat the GOP in House races 52.3% to 44.3% and netted 31 seats. Two years later Obama triumphed and his coattails helped the Democrats win 53.2% compared to the GOP’s 42.6% as the Dems netted another 21 seats. So… up 52 seats! And then came the 2010 midterms in which they gave back all their winnings from 2006 and 2008 and then some! The GOP netted 63 seats, including tons of the shitty Blue Dogs and New Dems swept into office in 2006 and 2008, like Bobby Bright (AL), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Betsy Markey (CO), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Walt Minnick (ID), Debbie Halvorson (IL), Frank Kratovil (MD), Travis Childers (MS), John Adler (NJ), Harry Teague (NM), Michael McMahon (NY), Scott Murphy (NY), Mike Acuri (NY), Dan Maffei (NY), Steve Dreihaus (OH), Charlie Wilson (OH), John Boccieri (OH), Zack Space (OH), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), Patrick Murphy (PA), Chris Carney (PA), Glenn Nye (VA)… What if, instead of this motley collection of Blue Dogs and New Dems the Democrats had elected New Deal Dems? Would it have made a difference. In many cases, yes. Would the Democrats have still have lost their majority? Probably. But in 2012, Obama’s coattails helped drag a net of 8 Democrats over the finish line.

After Trump’s 2016 win, the Democrats netted 41 new seats, lost 13 two years later when Biden had no coattails and then lost another 9 (and the majority) in 2022. It's part of a natural ebb abd flow and if I had to guess now, I'd guess that despite the hundreds of millions of dollars Trump is stockpiling now, the Republicans are going to lose at least a couple dozen House seats next year. It would be many more if the DCCC disappeared off the face of the earth.

And a little reminder: the Democratic Party establishment managed to lose against THIS: