The good feelings within the Democratic Party stemming from its dominating electoral victories last week have come to a screeching halt. With a breakaway group of Senate Democrats brokering a compromise with Republicans to reopen the government, the realities of holding together a large and unwieldy party coalition have been laid bare.
Facing pressure from their activists to fight President Trump as hard as they can, Democrats are experiencing significant blowback — most of it coming from within their own ranks.
As the 2026 midterms approach, Democrats will have to try to put aside the squabbling and decide on a strategy for winning at the ballot box. And central to that strategy will be answering a crucial question: Do Democrats have an agenda of their own, or do they simply want to run as “not Donald Trump.”
Here, they might take a lesson from Republicans, recent polling shows. Like it or not, Republicans have a plan and voters know what it is, even if they think some parts of it go too far. In CBS News polling from October, while the Republican Party was 13 percentage points more likely to be viewed as “extreme” than the Democrats, it trounced Democrats on which party is more “strong” and “effective.” Voters were more likely to describe Democratic Party as “weak” by a 24-point margin compared with Republicans. Polling by Reuters/Ipsos showed Republicans holding an advantage when voters are asked which party has the better plan on a wide range of issues.
When I asked voters in my own polling which they preferred — a party that is better at getting things done, even if its views are sometimes too extreme, or a party that is more mainstream, though not as good at getting things done — voters preferred the action-oriented party by a 32-point margin; even independents who are normally more moderate preferred such a party by 23 points.
Nevertheless, as Mr. Trump’s job approval ratings sink, running simply as a check and balance on the excesses of the president may seem a simple and appealing path for Democrats. Running on an agenda of action requires tougher conversations within the party about what issues to prioritize and how to advance them. My own polling shows that a majority of voters (56 percent) say they are mostly concerned about pocketbook issues, compared with only 38 percent who cite broader issues about democracy, freedom and how we are governed. That polling shows that the cost of living and health care are the two issues voters most want leaders to focus on.
At the same time, the angst within the Democratic Party over the move to reopen the government shows that achieving consensus on how to oppose Mr. Trump is hard to come by, to say nothing of what would be needed to get the entire party on the same page about a forward-looking agenda.
The schism Democrats face today recalls the insurgency that emerged within the Republican Party following defeat at the hands of Barack Obama in 2008. Republicans were in turmoil, wrestling with how to move forward. Their party’s overall brand image trailed that of the Democrats, driven largely by Republican voters who said they viewed their own party unfavorably. Agitated party activists bucked G.O.P. leaders and elected candidates in primaries who were hardly the establishment favorites. (Ask Republicans of that era about Christine O’Donnell.)
From this infighting emerged the Tea Party movement, a grass-roots group of activists nettled by issues from the national debt to the Affordable Care Act to Mr. Obama’s presidency in general. At first, these insurgents were dismissed by critics as unfocused, extreme in their message, or even funded by secretive billionaires.
In the end, those Tea Party protests wound up being an early indicator that something was afoot in America that was going to shift the Republican Party, and the country. For all their anger at their own party’s leadership, frustrated Republicans were not exactly at risk of shunning the G.O.P. and voting for Democratic candidates. The economy was still faltering under a Democratic president; Democrats were overconfident.
By the end of that year, Republicans had won the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia. A year later, their party had been reinvigorated. They flipped control of the House, picking up more than 60 seats, and gained six Senate seats as well.
Today, “No Kings” protests against Mr. Trump’s policies are similarly dismissed by those on the right. The Democratic victories last week are held up as isolated events in the political off-year — in states that lean blue anyway — rather than as indicators of any broader political trend. Republicans most confidently point to polling about the Democrats’ dismal brand image to bolster the case that they’ll do just fine in the 2026 midterms.
To be sure, Democrats are experiencing some of their lowest favorability ratings in decades, driven in part by their own partisans giving them an unfavorable rating. Because independents dislike both parties so much, brand image for a party is influenced by how many of its members express displeasure with their own side. In my own polling, 90 percent of Republicans feel favorably about their party, including a majority (56 percent) who view their party very favorably. By contrast, only 83 percent of self-described Democrats feel favorably about their party, and do so much less fervently.
But just as a poor brand image and internal discontent did not prevent Republicans from taking advantage of the political environment in 2010, Democrats could still hold their own in next year’s midterms. The economy remains fragile; Republicans are at risk of being overconfident. Voters want leaders to focus on cost of living and aren’t sure the Republicans in power right now are doing so, and instead are putting their efforts into issues like immigration or crime that have faded in salience compared to a year ago.
Democrats today are without much of a leader or a message. They are under pressure from their base to do more to stop Mr. Trump, but are less clear about what exactly they would do if given the task of governing once again. The midterm primaries next year will tell us a great deal about how Democratic voters think their party ought to go about the critical task of winning elections again.
Republicans should remember that not long ago, when their own party seemed leaderless and divided, economic discontent and grass-roots energy powered them to victory over their complacent adversaries. If Democrats avoid nominating unelectable candidates in the midterms, and can pursue any sort of credible message on cost of living and the economy, they will be a more powerful force to be reckoned with than Republicans may expect.
Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer, is a Republican pollster and the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post Voters View Republicans as ‘Strong’ and a Party of Action. Democrats Need Some of That. appeared first on New York Times.
