As Democratic Party leaders gathered in Los Angeles for their annual winter meetings this week, for the first time in a long time the mood was warm.

Optimism coursed through the hotel ballrooms, following a string of double-digit wins in off-year elections last month. Democratic National Committee members flocked to California Gov. Gavin Newsom — a likely presidential contender — for selfies and major donors are resurfacing after a period of hibernation. Conan O’Brien, Jane Fonda and Shonda Rhimes joined Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for a major donor gathering, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. And Nebraska and Utah officials are among those expressing interest in hosting the party's novel midterm mini-convention next year, according to three people briefed on the conversations.

“The party, broadly, is just feeling like they got their sea legs back,” Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles. “And they’re winning and winning solves a lot of problems.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin nodded to the vibe shift in his own remarks Friday: "I can tell you, it's a much different feel in this room than a few months ago,” he said.

But for all the energy at the DNC’s winter meeting, Democrats are still confronting challenges. The committee’s finances are shaky at best, badly trailing their Republican counterparts. The committee has yet to release its 2024 autopsy in full, as Democrats continue to argue over why the party lost so resoundingly last year. A proxy battle looms over the presidential primary calendar, as several states continue to lobby DNC members on the sidelines of this week’s meetings.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris was warmly received when she addressed the convention Friday night, but her return to the national stage, fresh off a controversial book release, is also a reminder of the party’s fractured response to its sweeping losses in 2024, when Donald Trump defeated her in every swing state on his way to becoming president.

On Friday, Harris gave DNC members a reality check by delivering her most expansive diagnosis yet of what she sees as the country's broken political system. “We must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than reality,” she said.

Most pressingly, the DNC faces serious financial problems. In October, it took out a $15 million loan, framed by the party as a financing investment into the New Jersey and Virginia elections that Democrats ended up dominating. While not unprecedented, it was a larger sum of money earlier in the cycle than is typical. The committee's loan also brings the Republicans' cash advantage into sharp relief — the Republican National Committee has $88 million more in the bank when accounting for the debt, according to November’s Federal Elections Commission filings.

And some party members still want answers from the committee’s self-diagnosis for what went wrong in 2024.

The DNC still hasn’t released its long promised post-election report, after earlier saying it wouldn’t come before last November’s elections. They have so far only shared initial findings with top Democrats at the committee’s national finance meeting in October. The preliminary findings, which a DNC aide insisted at the time were incomplete, criticized Democrats for not investing resources early enough, while ignoring discussion of former President Joe Biden’s age. But some DNC members are looking for more answers.

“It’s very hard for an organization to self criticize, so you need to keep the pressure up to make them do it,” said Eric Croft, the chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. “They said they’d do it. We’re going to make sure that they do.”

But things of late are looking much rosier. Democrats are cheered by their double-digit victories in New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races last month, as well as a slew of other off-year and special elections in which their candidates outperformed their 2024 margins. They even denied the GOP its supermajority in the Mississippi state senate. Public polling suggests the wind is at their backs in the 2026 midterms.

DNC members estimated the electoral momentum will help with fundraising.

“People are ready to open their wallets up now that they’ve realized what they’ve voted for,” said Manny Crespin, Jr., a committee member from New Mexico. “Now that they’ve realized it’s actually affecting their pocketbook, they’re going to do everything they can to reverse that.”

One of the biggest decisions ahead for the DNC will play out in a little-known yet powerful panel, the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is charged with setting the 2028 presidential primary calendar. States have until Jan. 16 to apply to be in the early window, but the behind-the-scenes jockeying for a spot has continued, several DNC members said privately.

“All of the early states are trying to lay their groundwork to get the committee to back them,” said a Democratic operative who attended the DNC meeting. “There’s a bit of a proxy war brewing on this.”

© Ethan Swope/AP

No matter what the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is doing in crowded primaries, one thing is certain: It's angering other Democrats.

The organization did little to stop the brewing primary in Texas, a potentially expensive feud for a prized but elusive seat punctuated by Jasmine Crockett’s entrance and Colin Allred’s departure this week. And in Iowa, Democrats involved in another crowded primary said the committee is warning consultants to not work with the non-DSCC preferred candidate.

The campaign arm’s divergent strategies in Texas and Iowa illustrate its ongoing challenges with controlling the party’s messy primaries — triggering backlash from some Democrats who are furious over its light touch in Texas and heavy-handedness elsewhere. Nearly a dozen Democratic strategists, many of whom were granted anonymity to give candid assessments, described the committee’s unenviable, yet weakened, position, as Democratic base voters remain frustrated with the party’s national leadership.

“They have a ton of tools they could’ve used and they didn’t use them” in Texas, said one person who has been involved in the Texas Senate race. “They don’t have the political power they once had … but it’s evident how weak they are institutionally.”

Democrats need to net four seats to retake the Senate next fall, and intraparty feuds — like those unfolding in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Texas — could hinder that goal.

In Maine, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is closely aligned with the DSCC, heavily recruited Gov. Janet Mills over oysterman Graham Platner, who has racked up a strong small-dollar following despite various controversies. In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens was invited to meet donors at a DSCC event in Napa this fall; her two primary opponents were not.

“When the DSCC intervenes, that’s the wrong person putting their thumb on the scale,” said Mary Jo Riesberg, Iowa’s Lee County Democrats chair, who endorsed Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls in the primary. “It really rubs Iowans the wrong way. We’ve had it happen here before … but it’s Iowans’ business.”

The DSCC has a long history of meddling in primaries on behalf of its preferred candidate — a strategy deployed by both parties and affiliated campaign committees. But wading into primaries has become more complicated in recent years, as the organization no longer exclusively controls access to the cash necessary to build out statewide campaigns. Instead, candidates “can build their own profile” and deliver it “to a national audience, which means dollars and attention, so you don’t have to go through the DSCC anymore,” said a second person involved in the Texas Senate race.

“It’s the rise of grassroots dollars,” the person said, “so the DSCC is weaker.”

Challenges to Democrats’ midterm strategy are also coming from inside its own caucus.

Nine senators, coordinating primarily through a texting chain and calling themselves “Fight Club,” are focused on the primaries for open seats in Minnesota, Michigan and Maine — often backing those who are not seen as Washington’s preferred candidates, according to two people directly familiar with the group’s thinking. The New York Times first reported on the group’s efforts.

“Wading into any primary is challenging in this environment [because] both party’s primary voters live in an anti-establishment world,” said Morgan Jackson, a top adviser to former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who cleared his own primary field after he jumped into the Senate race in July. “I think what you’ve seen from the DSCC, from the [Democratic Governors Association], is a desire to put forward nominees who can win the general election, and that’s where they’re always grounded.”

But what kind of Democrat is best poised to win a general election — especially in battleground or red-leaning territory — is still very much up for debate inside the party, leading to more heartburn over how the DSCC should operate. It’s also part of what’s fueling the rush of candidates joining primaries for Senate and House races across the country. And after sweeping victories in November, when Senate Democrats are casting their eye deep into the Senate map, there’s even more interest in running for office.

So far, the DSCC has not endorsed in any of these states. In a statement, DSCC spokeswoman Maeve Coyle said: “The DSCC has one goal: to win a Democratic Senate majority. We’ve created a path to do that this cycle by recruiting formidable candidates and expanding the map, building strong general election infrastructure, and disqualifying Republican opponents — those are the strategies that led Senate Democrats to overperform in the last four election cycles, and it’s how we will flip the majority in 2026.”

In addition to North Carolina, Senate Democrats managed to avoid a messy battle in Ohio, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown — like Cooper — is running virtually unopposed for his respective nomination. Both states are key to the party’s comeback plan.

It’s also not the first time the DSCC deployed these tactics. In 2019, Senate candidates in Colorado and Maine complained that the DSCC prevented consultants and vendors from working with them after being warned that they’d be blacklisted by the committee, which had backed opposing candidates. In 2016, it spent $1 million to boost Katie McGinty in her Pennsylvania Senate primary over then-Mayor of Braddock John Fetterman. McGinty won her primary, but lost to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.).

Now it’s warning consultants against working with Wahls and Nathan Sage, the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, two people involved with the Iowa race said. The DSCC hasn’t weighed in on the race formally, but several Iowa Democrats said state Rep. Josh Turek, a Paralympian and two-time gold medalist, is the committee’s preferred candidate.

“There is a very strong frustration among the Democratic base with party and establishment leadership that you didn’t see in 2018 or 2020 at this level,” said a Democratic strategist working with Wahls’ campaign in Iowa. “There is a resistance to the Democratic establishment, not just the establishment now.”

Other Democrats, however, defended the committee's moves. “These sound like complaints from people who have hurt feelings they didn’t get contracts and not people who actually care about winning races,” said a Democratic strategist working on multiple senate races.

Heading into 2026, the DSCC faces more primaries than usual. In Texas, Crockett, a Democratic firebrand who frequently clashes with Trump, will face off against state Rep. James Talarico, who has built a national profile by lacing his criticisms of Trump with Bible verses and appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Democrats expect the fight to be expensive, as Crockett and Talarico, both known to go viral online, are prolific fundraisers.

Crockett’s entrance into the race — including a launch video featuring Trump calling her a “low IQ person” — prompted eyerolls among moderate Democrats. Trump has won Texas by double digits three times and Crockett “has cultivated a reputation as a hyper-partisan figure,” said Simon Bazelon, an adviser to the center-left Welcome PAC organization.” Bazelon added she’ll have “a very tough hill to climb while trying to win statewide.”

Of her critics, Crockett said this week, “I just want to be clear for all the haters in the back. Listen up real loud. We gonna get this thing done.”

The “Fight Club” senators — and the candidates they’re endorsing so far — tend to be more progressive, but they put a premium on backing “real fighters who are throwing out the old playbook,” one of the two people familiar with their thinking said. It’s a style over status quo argument that’s led Democratic elected officials to more openly criticize their caucus’ leadership.

In Minnesota, seven of those eight senators, including Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), endorsed Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan over Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) in the open seat to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith. The primary in a blue-leaning state has pretty much flown under the radar in recent months, but it’s on track to become expensive and contentious.

“[The senators] all really liked [Flanagan], they want her to be the nominee and they were pissed that the DSCC was putting its hand on the scale,” said one person familiar with the situation.

Craig, for her part, has also picked up backing from several senators, including Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). And she’s raised $2.2 million for her campaign, according to October Federal Elections Commission filings — more than double the nearly $1 million Flanagan raised.

“I don’t know who the DSCC prefers, but there is definitely a clear difference in this race,” Craig said in a statement. “I’ve won tough elections against Republicans, show up and do my job every day, and voted twice to impeach Donald Trump. There’s another Democrat in the race who has never had to run a competitive race by herself on a ballot and regularly skips the work she’s supposed to be doing now back home in Minnesota — and now wants a promotion.”

Adam Wren contributed reporting. 

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Mary Jo Riesberg initially misrepresented her position and had endorsed Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls, according to Wahls' campaign website.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Democrats are vowing to expand the midterm map into redder territory next year after strong showing Tuesday night in Tennessee, but prominent moderates warn the party must still overcome its tarnished national brand.

State Rep. Aftyn Behn’s overperformance in a district President Donald Trump won by more than 20 points last year further emboldened Democrats, after sweeping victories last month. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is planning to soon expand its 35-seat target list of Republican-held seats, according to a person familiar with the committee’s thinking who was granted anonymity to share details. And in a memo to donors and allied groups obtained by POLITICO, Senate Majority PAC President JB Poersch said Tuesday’s results “mean Ohio, Florida, Alaska, Texas and Iowa could be competitive.”

But Behn’s progressive credentials — and the GOP’s ability to spend-heavilly and bring her down with previous comments about police funding — is inflaming debates about the future of the Democratic Party and what types of candidates it should nominate in primary contests.

Former Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, who flipped a deep-red district in a 2018 special election, called the race “a missed opportunity.”

“It just sort of looks like we ran a standard to progressive Democratic campaign and we got the result you would expect,” Lamb said. “What a successful candidate would have done is motivate people, exactly the way that she did around Nashville, but also appeal to some more people who are less partisan outside of it.”

He added, “to win enough of a House majority to really be able to do anything of significance, we're going to have to do that.”

The internal sniping comes despite a string of special election overperformances this year — Democratic candidates won by double digits in New Jersey and Virginia’s gubernatorial races last month. Those victories spurred fundraising surges and candidate recruitment for Democrats.

Behn’s race turned into a national flashpoint after those successes, drawing more than $3.5 million in outside spending from Republican groups to attack her as “a very radical person” in TV ads. She outran Harris by less than any other Democrat in a special congressional election since Trump took office — though those other races didn’t draw any significant outside spending. That triggered a round of finger-pointing, particularly on social media, over whether a more moderate candidate might have performed better.

When pressed in media interviews during the campaign about her previous social media posts, Behn said she’d “matured,” adding she was a private citizen when she made the comments. She also said police funding should be decided at the local level.

“I don’t think it’s radical to have spent my entire career organizing to make healthcare more affordable or groceries cheaper,” she said ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant who worked on Behn’s campaign, responded to post-election criticisms, saying that in her interviews and campaign ads, “Aftyn was laser-focused on lowering costs — a message that our polling showed worked very well with both Democrats and the very small pool of persuadable voters.”

Internal Behn campaign analytics shared with POLITICO showed thousands of Democrats who did not vote in the 2022 midterms had come out in the early vote. Early voting data out of rural counties also suggested she won over some voters who previously cast ballots for Trump or GOP Rep. Mark Green.

But some Democrats lamented Behn’s “politically toxic positions” as “anvils weighing [her campaign] down,” Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at the center-left Third Way, said.

After an election that many viewed as a disappointment for the GOP given the pattern of Democratic overperformances, Republicans were eager to exploit those divides.

“Democrats can daydream about ‘expanding’ the House map all they want, but reality keeps smacking them in the face,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement. “Their party is splintered, their messy primaries are a socialist free-for-all, and voters are consistently reminded that the Democrat Party is on the wrong side of every single issue.”

Even so, Behn’s ability to narrow Republicans’ margin-of-victory coupled with stronger-than-expected turnout gives Democrats reason for optimism heading into the midterms. That’s why Democrats say they are casting their eyes deeper into the electoral map, which includes 46 GOP-held congressional seats that Trump won by 13 or fewer points in 2024 — the margin by which Behn closed the gap between Trump and Harris.

“If Democrats do 13 points better than [Kamala] Harris did next November in every district, we flip the House and it’s not even close,” Democratic pollster Brian Stryker said. “Add this to New Jersey and Virginia, and it’s clear if the election were today we’d clean Republicans’ clocks.”

Courtney Rice, the DCCC’s communications director, said in a statement that the committee “started the 2026 cycle on offense with our original list of ‘Districts in Play,’ ranging from true swing districts to districts Trump won by 17 points.” She said recent elections “are further proof that our strategy of expanding the map and holding Republicans accountable for their broken promises to lower costs is the right one.”

The Tennessee race — which drew the attention of Trump and Harris — also yielded higher turnout than other special elections this year. Votes cast in the special election slightly surpassed the 2022 midterm in the district, and were roughly 54 percent of the total cast in the 2024 presidential election. None of the other congressional special elections where Democrats made bigger gains this year came near that.

That means Behn’s overperformance can’t just be chalked up to low-turnout conditions that typically favor Democrats. Narrowing Republicans’ margin even with midterm-like turnout gives the party new reason for optimism heading into 2026.

“There is a lot of excitement based upon what we saw last night in the 7th [District],” said Columbia, Tennessee's Democratic Mayor Chaz Molder, who is challenging Rep. Andy Ogles in the state’s neighboring 5th District, which encompasses part of Nashville as well as suburbs and exurbs to the south.

“We saw a clear message from the voters that they want sensible leadership and candidates are focused on the issues that matter — lowering costs, that includes housing and grocery costs. I think affordability certainly remains a key theme here,” Molder said. “And so I'm going to use last night to show as a sign that I need to remain laser focused on those issues.”

An Ogles spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The high turnout in the race is spooking some in the GOP, where the mood was already sour following Democrats’ victories last month. While some continue to dismiss Democrats’ ballot box strength as an off-year anomaly, others see a rough cycle ahead.

"I think the results are more good for Republicans than bad, but it's clear the left is energized to turnout and if that continues a year from now it will be a rough year for Republicans,” said Republican strategist Matt Wolking.

And while Trump campaigned harder for Van Epps in Tennessee than he did in other races this year, he still hasn’t hit the trail, instead opting to rally voters remotely from Washington. To keep control of the House next year, Republicans believe Trump — who maintains a near-total grip on his MAGA base — needs to be more visible.

And as polls show that voters are losing faith in the president’s ability to handle the economy, Republicans need to find a cohesive message, fellow GOP members say.

Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s top pollster, told House Republicans during a closed door meeting to “stay the course and talk about the realities of the economy,” arguing the closer-than-desired margin was in part because of how Van Epps discussed the economy, POLITICO reported Wednesday.

Some of that is already underway. James Blair, Trump’s 2024 political director, told POLITICO after the GOP’s losses in November that the president “is very keyed into what’s going on” economically.

“I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair, who now serves as White House deputy chief of staff, said in the interview.

Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the results on Wednesday, telling reporters, “This doesn’t concern me at all.”

“Democrats put millions of dollars in,” Johnson said. “They were really trying to set the scenario that there’s some sort of wave ongoing. There’s not.”

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report. 

© George Walker IV/AP

Former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes launched his bid to replace retiring Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday, joining an already crowded and competitive Democratic primary.

Barnes, who lost a 2022 Senate race against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), focused on affordability and attacked Republicans in his launch video, arguing that it “seems like the harder you work, the more Washington looks the other way — lower taxes for billionaires, higher prices for working people.”

“Under Trump, the name of the game has been distraction and chaos to avoid accountability,” Barnes said. “It isn’t about left or right, it isn’t about who can yell the loudest. It’s about whether people can afford to live in the state they call home.”

But Barnes’ entrance is not expected to clear the primary field, like it did in his 2022 Senate primary, several Wisconsin Democrats said. A half-dozen Democrats are already vying to replace Evers, including Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and attorney Missy Hughes. Evers over the summer announced he wouldn’t run for a third term.

A Marquette University poll, conducted in October, showed a wide-open race with 81 percent of Democrats who hadn’t decided who to back in the August primary. Crowley clocked in with the most name recognition, with 26 percent, followed by Rodriguez at 25 percent and Hong at 22 percent. The poll didn’t survey Barnes’ name, as he hadn’t entered the race yet.

Republicans also face a primary, where President Donald Trump has not weighed in yet with an endorsement. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, are both running.

© Morry Gash/AP

House Democrats are jumping into an upcoming special election in Tennessee, dumping $1 million on an increasingly nationalized battle for a deep-red congressional seat as President Donald Trump gets involved in the race.

House Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with the lower chamber’s Democratic leadership, announced plans on Friday to spend $1 million on TV and digital ads to boost state Rep. Aftyn Behn. The Tennessee Democrat faces Republican Matt Van Epps next month in a district Trump won by 22 points in 2024.

The spending represents a dramatic escalation for national Democrats, who have so far not spent significant cash on the long-shot race. Republicans have pumped far more — over $1.7 million — into it, including through the Trump-allied super PAC and the Club for Growth.

This week, Trump and Kamala Harris waded into the contest, with the president hosting a telephone rally for Van Epps, while Harris appeared at a canvass launch for Behn on Tuesday.

Privately, Democrats acknowledge it’s at best a narrow path to victory, but are voicing newfound optimism about their ability to win — or at least narrow past margins — on Republican turf after their consistent overperformance at the ballot box since Trump’s 2024 rout.

The Tennessee race marks the House Democrats’ super PAC’s first special election involvement this cycle.

Ahead of April special elections in Florida for two congressional seats in districts that Trump won by more than 30 points, Democratic candidates raised millions, mostly from online donors, but HMP and other Democratic super PACs steered clear. Republican-aligned super PACs spent more than $1 million on each race, and both Democratic candidates overperformed expectations, while still losing by roughly 15 points each.

Democratic enthusiasm is also showing up in the Tennessee candidates’ fundraising totals.

Behn raised just over $1 million since the start of October, according to a report her campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. More than half the total was from donors giving less than $200. Van Epps raised $590,000 over the same period, with nearly half his funds coming from other political committees.

© George Walker IV/AP

Behind closed doors on Wednesday, a Nevada Democrat implored her House colleagues to “stop pissing on each other and start pissing on” Republicans over the shutdown deal, according to two people familiar with her remarks.

They weren’t all listening.

While battleground lawmaker Susie Lee was making her case for a united Democratic front, clips of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) bashing Senate Democrats who supported ending the federal government shutdown were racking up hundreds of thousands of views online.

The decision by eight Senate Democrats to give Republicans the necessary votes to reopen the federal government this week, without definitive concessions on health care costs, has inflamed divisions within a party that for years has been reeling from internal feuds. Now, Democratic strategists are warning the latest fight is distracting from the party’s mission of pummeling the GOP ahead of the pivotal midterms next year.

Nearly every Democrat running for the Senate condemned the deal and more than a half-dozen House Democrats called for the party to dump Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. House frontliners and prominent progressives piled on. Democrats popped off on cable news interviews, in direct-to-camera videos on social media and on podcasts, venting about how their party caved. They even started fundraising off the intraparty feud.

But all that fury is threatening to rebound on them, some Democrats said.

“We didn’t love the deal either, but that doesn’t mean we think Democrats should be out shooting at each other over this,” said Matt Bennett, president of Third Way, a centrist think tank. “We need to keep the focus on where this belongs: Trump and Republicans having taken away health care from millions. Internecine warfare among Democrats is bonkers and should stop.”

Or, as another Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, put it: “The circular firing squad is not helpful.”

The House Democratic campaign arm weighed in, too, begging its members “to hold vulnerable Republicans … accountable” for the government shutdown in a memo circulated on Monday.

The internal dispute over how and when to end the longest government shutdown lays bare the deep divisions coursing through the party’s primaries across the country. Some Democrats, usually the younger ones, want to aggressively fight President Donald Trump’s agenda, reflecting the intense pressure from an enraged base. Yet other, more establishment-minded Democrats, don’t think “standing up to Donald Trump” worked, as Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said during an MSNBC interview Monday.

But there’s a risk, some Democratic strategists warned, in “los[ing] focus on the central health care issue and who’s to blame, which is the Republicans,” said Mark Longabaugh, a veteran consultant who was a top strategist for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. “From a political standpoint, Democrats have to return their focus [to Republicans] no matter how angry they may be with a betrayal of eight senators.”

The pressure for party unity is high, as deadlines loom for the next round of political battles: In December, Democrats are seeking a vote to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that faces an uncertain path through the GOP-controlled Congress. In January, they’ll confront another government funding deadline.

It all comes at a perilous moment for Democrats, who are suffering from historically poor approval numbers that haven’t recovered much from their electoral wipeout last year. Democrats were jubilant about last week’s off-year victories across the country, positing that their candidates’ overperformance in two gubernatorial races indicates deep dissatisfaction with Republicans that will carry into the midterms. Public polling, too, consistently showed Republicans shouldering more of the blame for the shutdown than Democrats.

“Yet, now, here we are again, with Democrats in disarray,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Senate aide to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Republicans are reveling in Democrats’ latest civil war, while warning it could end quickly and refocus the spotlight onto the GOP over one of its weaker electoral issues. Democrats held the advantage in a recent KFF poll that asked which party voters trust to handle the high cost of health insurance. Only one-third of voters in an AP-NORC poll released this week approve of Trump’s handling of health care.

“Their very messy family fight may complicate primaries and the future of the party, but it does not provide cover for the GOP on health care,” GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett said.

Democrats whiffed their first shot at unifying on Monday, but the ongoing furor over their party’s defectors — and Schumer’s inability to control them — threatened to overpower Democrats’ attacks on the GOP after Republicans blocked Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wis.) effort to force a vote on a one-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies. They’ll have another opportunity as House Democrats launch their own effort to force a vote on an extension through a procedural maneuver that would require some Republican support to reach the floor.

“People are focused on the deal right now and there wasn’t a lot of advance hubbub around the Baldwin test vote,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said. “By the time there is a vote in December, presumably there will be some more attention around that.”

Democrats are pivoting, but not in lockstep.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown bashed his GOP rival, Sen. Jon Husted, on Monday for “making health care unaffordable for small business owners” in a post that lacked any mention of the Democratic divide. Maine Gov. Janet Mills has hammered Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whose seat she’s seeking, for voting against Baldwin’s effort while continuing to criticize the Democratic senators who cut the shutdown deal. In Iowa’s open Senate race, state Sen. Zach Wahls kicked off a Monday press call by pairing a call for Schumer to step aside with an attack on Republicans’ “refusal to extend health care funding.”

The intraparty pile-on speaks to the political forces shaping the competitive primaries Democrats are facing in critical Senate and House races. At a time when the base is clamoring for more fighters, no one wants to be caught on the wrong side of the ropes.

“This is a downstream effect of primaries because it incentivizes talking about people who generally share your values but you differ on tactics or strategy, and explaining why they’re wrong. I don’t think that makes us more at risk,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of the progressive candidate training group Run For Something. “I think working through it, then voters making a decision, makes us stronger in the end.”

But there appear to be limits to Democrats’ self-destruction.

Inside the Capitol, Schumer is not facing a serious threat to his leadership post at the moment, though confidence in his stewardship has taken another hit within the caucus, according to a Senate Democratic aide granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. Even Sanders, who has endorsed several of the Senate candidates most outspoken against the caucus, admitted this week that Democrats do not have a replacement.

“I understand the frustration of the base and members, but we can’t spend all our time attacking each other,” Manley said. “I’m hoping Democrats can return to the health care debate and put Republicans on their back foot.”

© Andrew Harnik/AP

Democratic officials, strategists and activists are gathering in Washington on Friday for the first “Crooked Con,” hosted by the podcast juggernaut “Pod Save America,” which they are billing as the Conservative Political Action Committee, CPAC, “for the left.”

The lineup features several potential 2028 candidates, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and California Rep. Ro Khanna. Influencers Brian Tyler Cohen and Hasan Piker are getting top billing alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Sarah McBride of Delaware.

“We wanted to create a place where we could have these conversations about what's happening on our side and the changes that we need to make,” said Shaniqua McClendon, vice president of political strategy at Vote Save America. “The right has been much better at doing that.”

The event is timed with the group’s launch of its campaign program ahead of the 2026 midterms. In details shared first with POLITICO, Vote Save America, the nonprofit affiliated with Pod Save America and Crooked Media, announced it will be seeding more than a half-dozen on-the-ground, grassroots organizations with $250,000. So far, the group said it has raised $1.5 million for the 2026 midterms.

McClendon said they’re focusing on building up Democratic infrastructure because “a lot of those organizations just stopped getting the funding that they had been getting previously” in 2023 and 2024, when President Donald Trump swept back into the White House and Republicans held their majorities in Congress.

Those funding gaps in 2024, “I do think it had an impact,” she added

“My hope is that we can start to really push donors to think differently about the way they invest,” she said. “In no way am I saying we shouldn't give candidates money … but I think we have to be more thoughtful about investing in the infrastructure that is here all the time, and not just around Election Day.”

Vote Save America started during Trump’s first term, raising $70 million for candidates and organizations since 2018. The group boasts an email list of 600,000 volunteers.

© Charlie Neibergall/AP

For Democrats, Tuesday night felt like 2017 all over again.

All across the country, Democrats won big, from the marquee races to the down-ballot contests. Counties that had shifted right a year ago veered back to the left, and the suburbs that powered Democrats’ massive wins in the first Trump administration came roaring back. Exit polls even showed Democrats improved their margins with non-college educated voters.

The strength of the wins hints at Democrats’ appetite to take on Trump as he ends his first year in office and voters’ concerns about cost of living.

Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.

It was an injection of life into a depleted, depressed Democratic Party that had been cast into the political wilderness by Donald Trump’s decisive victory a year ago. Democrats, locked out of power in Washington, have spent the last year soul-searching and data-digging, as their brand sagged to historic lows.

But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them.

“Virginians and voters spoke loud and clear that they're pissed off at the Trump administration,” Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race. “Democrats came out in record numbers, and this is a foreshadow of what we're going to see next year.”

Democrats rode the traditional, party-out-of-power tailwinds, reenergizing their own base by pushing back on Trump’s second-term policies that have alarmed liberals. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s messaging on the stagnant economy and affordability crisis helped their party bounce back in its first political test of the second Trump era — and by margins that even surprised some Democrats.

“After brutal losses, like 2024 and 2016, it is hard to trust polling … and your gut of what should happen historically. You can't trust it,” said Stephanie Schriock, a Democratic strategist who formerly led EMILY’s List, a progressive group that elects women. “But everything, the internal polling, the organizations on the ground, the No Kings and Indivisible movement, the energy, it was all there.”

During Trump’s last midterm cycle in 2018, Democrats picked up 40 House seats — and Spanberger and Sherrill were part of that wave.

In Virginia, whose odd-year state elections are often seen as a bellwether ahead of midterms and presidential elections, Democrats flipped at least 13 seats in the House of Delegates. In the attorney general race, Democrat Jay Jones won by at least six points, overperforming expectations even as controversy mired his campaign’s final stretch, following revelations of violent text messages. Across the state, virtually every county shifted blue from former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 performance.

Spanberger’s double-digit victory was powered by a familiar set of voters: While she did better than Democrats from the past decade just about everywhere, her strongest gains were in suburban and exurban Virginia, including Loudoun County. Those are some of the same areas that powered Democrats’ resistance to Trump during his first term, but had drifted toward the GOP during President Joe Biden’s tenure.

In Prince William County, a wealthy enclave outside Washington, Democrat Ralph Northam won by 23 points in 2017; last year, Harris’ margin fell to under 18 points there. Spanberger won it by a whopping nearly 34 points.

And while slightly less dramatic, Spanberger’s strong showing in southeast Virginia could provide hope for Democrats aiming to flip districts held by GOP Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman next year, even before potential changes from a redistricting push to help make that effort easier.

“The mood music is the same soundtrack,” Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who focuses on House races, said of the comparison to 2018. “A deeply unpopular president, the same one, and a lot of Americans are very concerned about key issues like health care costs spiking.”

In the top races — the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the New York mayoral — all Democrats cleared 50 percent support. The trio of candidates represent both ends of the Democratic spectrum: democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and traditional moderates Spanberger and Sherill. Republicans are already salivating over the change to turn Mamdani into a boogeyman and tie him to more moderate Democrats across the country.

But Democrats argued “the throughline on all of these races was: talk about affordability,” said David Hogg, a Democratic activist who co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a group focused on electing young people.

“Tomorrow, there are going to be a lot of mischaracterizations and bad faith arguments about how every single policy Zohran ran on here should and will be applied across the country,” Hogg said. “Even if the policies aren't transferrable [among states], what is transferrable are the tactics, listening to voters and not giving bullshit talking points..”  

Democrats’ are still battling a damaged brand, according to NBC News’ exit pollthat showed that more voters in Virginia, New Jersey and California hold unfavorable views of the Democratic Party than favorable ones. But the Tuesday elections could inject new energy and focus into a party that has been without for much of the year.

Republicans, already feeling the traditional midterm headwinds, warned Tuesday’s results could portend serious challenges next year. That’s particularly acute without Trump on the ballot, as one national Republican consultant said, because “you get all the damage with none of the benefits.”

Another GOP strategist, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the biggest challenge will be figuring out how to turn out low-propensity Trump voters next year. The most troubling sign for Republicans out of Tuesday’s results were Georgia Democrats’ flips of the two statewide seats in a sleepy Public Service Commission race, the strategist added.

The state’s Senate race next year is almost certain to be among the biggest of the cycle, with Republicans looking to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

"The one thing that would worry me, besides making sure you hold the House, is looking at how Democrats were able to fire up their base in some of these local elections in Georgia,” the strategist said.

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© Alex Wong/Getty Images

Working-class voters see Democrats as “woke, weak and out-of-touch” and six in 10 have a negative view of the party, concluded a frank internal assessment of the hole the party finds itself in.

The nine-month, 21-state research project is the latest in a wave of post-mortems and data dives aimed at solving the Democratic Party’s electoral challenges after their sweeping losses in 2024. It was funded by Democracy Matters, a nonprofit aligned with flagship Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, and backed by months of polling, dozens of focus groups and message testing.

American Bridge’s project focused exclusively on working-class voters, shedding light on a once-core constituency for Democrats that’s drifted away from the party over the last decade. And the initial feedback is grim: Working-class voters don’t see Democrats as strong or patriotic, while Republicans represent safety and strength for them. These voters “can't name what Democrats stand for, other than being against [Donald] Trump,” according to the report.

The Democratic brand “is suffering,” as working-class voters see the party as “too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact every one, every day,” the report said.

“We lost people we used to get [in 2024], so why did we lose them? Why don’t we go ask them,” said Mitch Landrieu, co-chair of Democracy Matters and senior adviser to then-President Joe Biden. “They said what they thought about us and it was painful to hear … They feel forgotten, left out, and that their issues are not prioritized by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”

He added, “they want somebody focused first, second and third, on their economic stress.”

Landrieu and other aides will brief congressional members on the findings in the coming weeks. They’re also airing one of the ads they tested as a part of the project in Virginia, boosting Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor. The ad, backed by a six-figure buy, features a 70-year-old woman who said she still works and lives paycheck to paycheck.

Other center-left groups’ post-mortems drew similar conclusions about the depths of the problem Democrats face in repairing their brand, as well as urging their party to side-step social issues and prioritize economic concerns. But even as the report calls for a proactive policy agenda, it’s not clear what that detailed policy agenda might be.

The project was conducted by Impact Research, GBAO and HIT Strategies over a 9 month period, surveying 3,000 working-class voters from across the political spectrum. It also included 39 focus groups with 400 working-class voters and other research.

The report argues Democrats still have a path to regain the support of blue-collar voters they have been losing to Republicans, from resetting their perceived priorities to leaning into issues that voters trust them on, including health care and housing. They point to Trump’s failure to bring down costs since resuming office this year as proof that “this group is very much up for grabs,” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster who worked on the project.

“They are not convinced that what they are getting from Republicans is alleviating the stress they’re experiencing and Democrats can win them over,” said Molly Murphy, another Democratic pollster who also worked on the project.

But warning signs remain for Democrats heading into next year’s midterms.

Working-class voters “don’t fully recognize the extent of the harm Trump’s budget bill is causing,” the report said. Instead, they are “incredulous as to why Republicans would seemingly make a bad system worse.” The report acknowledged that “Republicans start off on stronger ground on these issues, but Democrats can reclaim them when they vividly illustrate how their plans differ from Republicans’, particularly on health care.”

Trump’s job approval rating among the surveyed working-class voters, who backed him by 7 points in 2024, is even. Still, these same voters only gave Republicans a 2-point edge heading into 2026, per the data from Democracy Matters.

Democrats’ must focus on affordability, the report emphasized, though its messaging suggestions clash with the strategy of progressives, differing on who to blame for economic strain. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) drew enormous crowds when they barnstormed the country this spring on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, attacking billionaires and “the 1 percent.”

But in the report, their surveys found “a candidate focused on taking on big corporations and the wealthy” received 43 percent, while a “candidate focused on fixing the economy so those who work hard can get ahead” earned 52 percent.

“Not one person in all of our focus groups mentioned the word ‘oligarchy,’” Landrieu said.

These respondents aspire to wealth, Landrieu added, but “absolutely felt like wealthy people who were using the tax system to not pay their fair share was a very serious problem.”

Murphy said their data prompted them to “come out of this wanting to use a little bit of caution” when talking about the economy. “Not to be prescriptive in saying, ‘don’t say take on billionaires’ or use populist messaging,” she added, “but [working-class voters] need to know Democrats respect people who build wealth, and we’re not looking to punish them.” .

The report identified two areas of particular weakness for Democrats: transgender rights and immigration. Both topics dominated Republican messaging in 2024, particularly Trump’s ad that included the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”

The research argued the “strongest Dem messages on trans issues focus on keeping the government out of medical professionals’ decisions, followed by prioritizing the economy” and it urged candidates: “Don’t say Republicans need to stop attacking LGBT people. Instead, say everyone — Republicans and Democrats — need to stop obsessing over this issue.”

But it also found one-third of independents would be “much more likely” to support Democrats if they said “transgender women should not play in women’s sports,” the second highest testing message in swaying these voters.

Democrats have split on how to talk about transgender issues. Some, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, broke with his party to criticize allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports, calling it “an issue of fairness” on his podcast last March. In contrast, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker blasted “do-nothing” Democrats in a speech last spring for “blam[ing] our losses on our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants — instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.”

The report included a detailed media consumption study, finding that working-class voters are “consuming less news and using YouTube and playing video games more than the overall electorate.” They rely on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook for news, and they’re more likely to use TikTok specifically for news than the overall electorate.

They also are constantly tuned into audio throughout the day, be it radio, streaming or podcasts.

“We heard time and again in the groups that these are not low-info voters and they’re not traditional news readers, but they’re getting inundated with information,” said Ryan Berni, a Democratic consultant who advised on the project. “It’s almost a slur to call them low-info voters. They’re getting a lot, but not from Democrat-aligned sources.”

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© Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images

Run For Something, a progressive candidate recruitment organization, is pitching major donors on a $50 million, five-year effort to expand Democrats’ footprint in battleground and red states outside the Blue Wall — an ambitious plan for a party that’s lost ground with voters across the country.

In a donor memo shared first with POLITICO, the organization paints a dire picture for Democrats if they don’t invest in red-leaning states, and details plans to support independent candidates for the first time next year.

The memo outlines a strategy for recruiting, training and electing Gen Z and millennial candidates in a dozen states, with an eye toward increasing Democratic turnout and expanding the party’s path to 270 electoral votes. But Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — which comprise the so-called Blue Wall that served as the backbone of the Democratic Party’s victories for decades — are not on the list.

“The core Blue Wall states, which Democrats have invested in for years, are not sufficient,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something. “We cannot keep hyper-targeting our work to only places that are seen as competitive right now. We have to prepare, not just for the likely fall of the Voting Rights Act, and the current round of redistricting, but what comes after in 2032. That’s why we have to expand the map.”

Litman’s group will also endorse “values-aligned” independent candidates for the first time in 2026, a recognition that in some states and districts, the “Democratic brand isn’t just bruised, but toxic,” the memo reads.

The organization raises concerns about Democrats' chances of winning the White House and retaking control of Congress: The 2030 census projections show Democrats losing seats in blue states, due to population loss, and Republicans gaining them — with 70 percent of all down-ballot races left uncontested. That challenge is all the more urgent for Democrats as red states seek to redraw their congressional map to pad their midterm margins. And the Supreme Court is considering a case that could weaken the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which could wipe away majority-minority districts, often represented by Democrats, across the South.

Litman is urging Democrats to double down on recruiting and training candidates in battleground states, including Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, while reinvesting in long-abandoned states, like Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Based on population growth and demographic changes in these states, “these are going to open up more opportunities” for Democrats, she said.

“We should, of course, continue fighting for Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but if we continue to be short-termist in our deep engagement, if we don’t start building political infrastructure elsewhere, we will reach a point in 2032 where we’re starting at zero,” Litman said. “If we don’t do the work in 2026 through to 2032, then turning Texas into a battleground won’t even be an option.”

She also argued that in states without much Democratic representation, “where there is no candidate recruitment, where there is no talent building for local operatives, minimal political infrastructure,” there’s an opening to “shift the brand” if “we field candidates who are vetted, with local ties, authentic.”

“We only find those people by getting them to run for city council and school board,” Litman said.

Litman co-founded Run For Something after President Donald Trump’s first victory to build up Democrats’ bench for local races. The group focused on training and recruiting candidates for non-congressional races, including legislative, city council and county commission seats.

Over the last decade, Run For Something has helped 1,500 candidates win in 49 states and raised nearly $50 million.

Its memo argues how legislative candidates can deliver "reverse coattails" when a down-ballot candidate drives turnout to lift the top of the ticket.

One example came in Ohio's 2024 Senate race: a Run For Something-backed candidate flipped a state House seat in Franklin County, even as then-Sen. Sherrod Brown lost ground there. The organization called that "an indication that the RFS recruitment model finds the candidates that reflect their communities. ... In addition to driving turnout locally, good downballot candidates can be some of the best community verifiers for top of ticket/statewide races."

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct that Brown did not lose Franklin County in 2024.

© Damian Dovarganes/AP

Gov. Janet Mills’ entrance into the Maine Senate primary on Tuesday reignited the familiar progressive-versus-establishment battle lines. A three-way clash in Michigan has exposed the ongoing divisions within the party over Israel-Gaza. And a wave of generational challenges to elderly House members have flared across the country.

Democratic primaries — already crowded, often messy and frequently retreading well-worn ideological fault lines within the party — are finally taking shape as top candidates jump in and filing deadlines approach.

Who wins these primary races will give early clues for how the party might emerge from the political wilderness in the wake of 2024 losses, as it looks to retake levers of power in Washington next fall. But they also present challenges for Democratic Party officials, often looking to control the primary process by pushing their preferred candidates and avoiding expensive intra-party clashes.

Mills, for example, was heavily recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to enter the race, but she’ll now face well-funded primary opponent Graham Platner, an oyster farmer with the backing of Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“The Democratic Party is undergoing a robust discussion with itself about how to win again. That means a lot of viewpoints, a lot of energy — and a lot of candidates,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who served as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s political director in 2016. “Candidates will have to prove whether their views, profiles and approach fit their districts or states. This process will be messy and unpredictable but is often unavoidable.”

POLITICO compiled a list of the top Democratic primaries that will offer clues for how the party moves forward.

Maine Senate primary

Hours after Mills joined the race, her campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee formed a joint fundraising committee, making it clear who Washington Democrats prefer and providing a resource boon.

But it’s not clear whether the two-time governor’s establishment connections will help her in the primary — a familiar challenge in Democratic primaries.

Platner, who is in his early 40s and backed by a constellation of younger, progressive organizations, has already raised $4 million for his bid — a large sum for a first-time candidate. Jordan Wood, a 36-year-old former congressional aide whose campaign said he’s raised $3 million, is also running. Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company, dropped out on Tuesday and endorsed Mills.

Platner previewed some of the attack lines against Mills in The New York Times, saying that “going with someone who is very much of the establishment, going with someone who is very much of the party that has built the world we live in now, I think that runs a massive risk.”

There are also generational themes underpinning the race, as Mills, who is 77, is the oldest candidate in the race and would be the oldest freshman senator should she win. She has said that she only planned to serve one term, should she be elected.

Michigan Senate primary

The United States’ role in Israel is poised to take center stage again in the Michigan Senate race, where a trio of candidates, all with differing stances on the issue, are competing to replace retiring Michigan Sen. Gary Peters in a crucial battleground.

Earlier this month, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow called the conflict in Gaza a genocide, joining Abdul El-Sayed, a former Michigan health official, who has taken an even firmer stance against Israel’s actions. McMorrow’s comments represent not only the Democratic Party’s evolving views on Israel, but also how candidates hope to use the issue to differentiate themselves within the primary.

In contrast, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) is backed by AIPAC, the pro-Israel group. AIPAC’s super PAC already dropped millions to boost Stevens in 2022, when she beat then-Rep. Andy Levin in a member-on-member primary. Democrats in the state expect AIPAC to spend heavily on behalf of Stevens again, which could also test Democratic primary voters’ willingness to accept big money interventions.

The state, home to a significant Arab-American population, saw the rise of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure then-President Joe Biden to take a stronger stance against Israel last year amid the war.

Tennessee’s 9th District primary

A handful of young, insurgent candidates have popped up across the country, challenging older, tenured House members, whom they have deemed generationally out-of-step in standing up to President Donald Trump.

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, the “Tennessee Three” member who announced his primary bid against 10-term Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) last week, best represents this dynamic. Pearson, who is 30, instantly picked up support from David Hogg’s group, Leaders We Deserve, which pledged to spend $1 million against the 76-year-old Cohen.

The complaints are often stylistic rather than ideological, which could shed new light on primary voters’ preferences ahead of the 2028 presidential primary.

California gubernatorial primary

Voters in the biggest blue state, in picking its next governor, will confront what matters more: A candidate focused on standing up to Trump or dealing with the state’s non-Trump-related problems.

But, so far, there is no clear frontrunner answering that question. Former Rep. Katie Porter, who lost a 2022 bid for Senate, held a slight polling advantage before a recent contentious interview went viral. But several other Democrats are vying for a spot: former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former state comptroller Betty Yee and state superintendent Tony Thurmond.

And other high-profile candidates may still enter the race. Los Angeles businessman and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is often name-checked, as is Sen. Alex Padilla. It’s not clear if either will ultimately make the jump.

Another dynamic for Democrats could come in the general election, should the Republican candidates, Riverside County sheriff Chad Bianco and Fox News personality Steve Hilton, get locked out. If it’s a Democrat-versus-Democrat in November 2026, voters can deliver an even more clear answer on what it means to be a California Democrat, particularly on issues around crime and housing.

New York’s 17th District primary

This upstate New York district is one of only three House districts Kamala Harris won in 2024 that’s also held by a Republican, making it one of the most tantalizing pickup opportunities for Democrats in 2026. National Democrats are closely watching who might emerge from the unsurprisingly crowded primary, where eight candidates have jumped in to take on Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) — with party leaders betting that more moderate candidates would be enticing to swing district voters.

Cait Conley, a former National Security Council official, and Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator, were both mentioned by national Democrats as potential swing seat stars, should they emerge from the primary.

“In 2018 Democratic primaries set the stage to win the House, [and] moderates with records of service won the day,” said Dan Sena, who served as the DCCC’s executive director in 2018. “One of the big questions for 2026 will be if the Democrats can again replicate that strategy and success.”

Melanie Mason contributed reporting. 

© Paul Sancya/AP

Late spending, exacerbated by a mid-battle candidate switch, and lack of attention to voters’ top concerns are among the reasons Democrats lost the White House last year, the Democratic National Committee determined in its assessment of the defeat.

The DNC started briefing top Democrats this week on parts of its post-election review, a highly anticipated post-mortem for a party still divided over what led to President Donald Trump’s second victory and how to forge a path back to electoral power.

DNC officials argued Democrats didn’t spend early or consistently enough to engage and persuade voters, one of several problems the party faced in 2024, the committee said. Swapping Joe Biden with Kamala Harris atop the ticket intensified those systemic, long-term problems for the party, the officials said, according to two people briefed by the DNC this week and granted anonymity to discuss those conversations. So far, Biden's age has not come up, they said.

The DNC officials said the party’s failure to respond to voters’ top issues led to losses across once-core constituencies, including working class voters. One of the people briefed said they understood that assessment to mean Democrats “didn’t talk enough about bread-and-butter issues, and instead, we talked about social issues, social anxieties.” That could portend a DNC critique of the Harris campaign, which some Democrats said emphasized abortion and democracy over the economy and immigration.

The DNC is not expected to release its post-election report until after the New Jersey and Virginia elections in November, arguing privately they must focus on the off-year races in which Democrats appear poised to win the blue states.

The third person briefed on the report said it will examine Democrats’ role in the media ecosystem, advocacy, organizing and technology, and make recommendations for how the party can improve. It will also analyze paid content, messaging, candidate travel and spending decisions from last year.

One of the people described the takeaways as “one, we can’t invest late in building out infrastructure in the states, and two, long-term investment is more important than late investment.”

“The problem with our side — we saw it in 2016, 2020 and 2024 — the money comes late and we need the money to come earlier. The issue for our side is not the lack of money, it’s how late it comes,” the person added.

Even so, it’s not clear how some of these conclusions square with reality.

The Biden campaign did only maintain a skeletal on-the-ground staff in some battleground states, worrying in-state Democrats, as POLITICO reported in December 2023. But Biden’s campaign also started communicating with voters earlier than any other modern presidential reelection campaign.

Biden’s campaign dropped $25 million on ads in September 2023, earlier than both Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s reelection timelines. It spent another $30 million in March 2024 on ads. At the time, Biden’s team argued this early investment would activate key voters.

What questions the DNC tackles in its post-mortem, what conclusions it draws, and who it blames, if anyone, will inevitably inflame Democrats, reopening wounds over an election in which the party lost ground with voters across every demographic and ceded every swing state.

DNC Chair Ken Martin pledged to publicly release the results after he was elected in February, turning what would end up in the post-election review into a parlor game for frustrated Democrats. Some hope the party will take aim at the consultant class, a position Martin ran on during his in-house race. Some Democrats want the leadership of Harris’ campaign to receive more direct blame, while others point fingers at Future Forward, the flagship super PAC that backed her bid. And others believe the DNC needs to more aggressively reevaluate its own role in the defeat.

It’s also not clear if the report will tackle Biden’s advanced age — a top attack line from the GOP that his team downplayed, but one that was put on national display during his disastrous debate performance — and well as his decision to not exit the race until three months before the election.

So far, in these sessions, the DNC did not call out any person or entity by name, these two people said, but one acknowledged, “I don’t know what’s in the full document.”

When asked about the briefings, a DNC aide said the committee was in regular contact with Democrats to share early insights of its analysis, but added the report was not complete and interviews are still ongoing. The aide warned that topics not covered in the briefings may be addressed in the final assessment.

Two of those briefed said the DNC is also using the sessions to prepare for the New Jersey and Virginia elections, where it’s piloting new voter contact projects.

“The DNC has this core role as an infrastructure hub, and they’re looking critically at where that wasn’t strong enough and early enough,” the second person continued. “There were a lot of conversations about what kind of quality persuasion tactics should be deployed, how long that stuff takes, the perpetual problem of talking to voters at the very end of the cycle.”

They also said the DNC shared an analysis of the Republican ecosystem, particularly focused on their online communications, where Democrats “tend to go dark in the off-years in a way [Republicans] don’t do,” the person added.

© Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson is challenging 10-term House incumbent Steve Cohen, turning the Democratic primary into the latest test of the party’s debate over age.

David Hogg's political group, established to elect younger people to office, is pledging $1 million to Pearson.

In his announcement video, Pearson described himself as a "Memphian, born and raised, who understands how to build bridges across race, identity, ethnicity and generations in order to build the future that we want to live into.”

“We always stand up against those who try to silence us, push us to the periphery, push us to the back, in the places that should represent us,” Pearson added. “Now, I am ready to fight for us in the United States Congress.”

The primary represents the latest clash between generational forces in the party, with the 30-year-old Pearson taking on the 76-year-old Cohen. A wave of Democratic primary candidates, from California to Indiana to Georgia, are challenging longtime incumbents whom they feel are weak leaders at a time when the party is searching for a path back to power. They argue the party needs a stylistic makeover, led by a younger generation of candidates.

Pearson didn’t name-check Cohen in his launch video, but a pair of his progressive backers did. Hogg, who co-founded Leaders We Deserve and pledged to challenge “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats, urged Cohen to “pass the torch” in a statement. Justice Democrats called Cohen an “average absentee congressman” who “rarely shows up in the community, campaigns for support or holds town halls … while still cashing checks from corporate PACs.”

Cohen is also the only white member from either party to represent a majority-Black district.

Pearson and Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones gained national attention for their expulsion, then reinstatement, to the state legislature in 2023. The pair led a gun control protest on the state House floor after six children were murdered at a Christian school in Nashville.

Cohen, who was first elected in 2006, has faced primary challenges before and he’s usually crushed his opponents. In 2024, he won with nearly three-quarters of the vote.

© George Walker IV/AP

Roy Cooper raised $14.5 million during the first 65 days of his campaign — a record-breaking total for a Senate challenger in their first fundraising quarter in one of the most competitive races of 2026.

The fundraising haul, shared first with POLITICO, includes $10.8 million into the former North Carolina governor’s campaign account. Another $3.7 million was raised into joint fundraising committees with the party, which allows for bigger contributions. Of the donations, more than 90 percent were $100 or less, Cooper’s campaign said.

It’s more than double what was raised by former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who brought in $5.8 million since launching his campaign in July.

Whatley, who's been endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Cooper are expected to face off next fall.

Cooper and Whatley, a prodigious fundraiser with his own national network of donors, have turned this already marquee contest into what isexpected to be the most expensive Senate race in history. Operatives in both parties estimate spending to reach $650 million to $800 million.

Cooper’s first-quarter total beat the record set by Amy McGrath, the former Marine fighter pilot who challenged Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2020 and raised $10.7 million.

Democrats, locked out of power at every level in Washington, see North Carolina as their top offensive target, particularly after Cooper entered the race following the announced retirement of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Even so, Democrats face long shot odds in flipping control of the Senate in 2026.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Voters under 50 are the least open to electing a female president, and four in 10 Americans personally know someone who would not elect a woman to the White House, a new poll finds.

The American University poll, shared first with POLITICO, reveals a complicated portrait of how voters view women in politics. A majority supports electing more women to office, yet female politicians face persistent headwinds over trust on key issues like national security. They also run up against double standards, with voters saying a female president must be both “tough” and “likable.”

Nonetheless, most voters support electing more women and believe the government gets more done with women in office, according to the national poll of 801 registered voters conducted last month. It was commissioned by the university’s Women and Politics Institute and had a 3.5-point margin of error.

Nearly one in five voters said they or someone they are close to would not elect a woman presidential candidate. That includes one-quarter of women under 50 and 20 percent of men under 50, who said they would not back a qualified female candidate for president, while 13 percent of men and women over 50 said they wouldn’t be open to supporting a woman for president.

“This survey reveals a powerful paradox,” said Viva de Vicq, the survey's lead pollster. “Voters trust women on the issues that matter most and want to see more women in office. Yet when asked about the presidency, bias and narrow expectations resurface.”

The survey comes nearly one year after Kamala Harris lost the presidential race, raising questions about female electability in a country that has only chosen men for the White House.

Voters are divided over how the former vice president’s candidacy impacted future female contenders. More than 40 percent of independent voters believe Harris complicated others' paths — pessimism that pervaded much of the upper echelons of Democratic politics after the election, when Harris lost to Trump by wider margins than Hillary Clinton did eight years prior.

Reflecting on the 2024 election, the poll found that only one-third of voters listen to “bro culture” podcasts. Of those who do, four in five believe those podcasts affected the election. Half of those surveyed said former President Joe Biden hurt the Democratic Party.

The poll said voters trust female politicians more than men to advance women’s equality, abortion and childcare. But more voters trust men than women to handle global conflicts. The “‘old boys club’ culture in politics” was cited as the biggest deterrent for women running for office, closely followed by negative media portrayal.

Of the 2025 landscape, women surveyed are generally more pessimistic about the economy than they were in 2024. Women under 50 are particularly feeling the pinch with a 15-point jump in negative views of the economy.

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© Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

House Democrats are going on the offense with tariffs and shutdown politics in swing districts, dropping TV ads against 10 vulnerable Republicans as Congress barrels toward an October government shutdown.

House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership, is spending $3 million on broadcast TV and digital ads attacking Republicans on cost-of-living increases and cuts to Medicaid. Details of Tuesday’s ad buy were shared first with POLITICO.

“They promised to lower prices, but you’re not imagining it — Republican tariffs are making everything more expensive,” one of the ad’s narrator says, over flashing images of grocery items. “Juan Ciscomani voted to let Trump make tariffs even worse and voted to make healthcare even more expensive. Now, Republicans in Congress are threatening to shut down the government, causing economic chaos.”

Ciscomani, a Republican member first elected in 2022, holds an Arizona House seat that Donald Trump also narrowly won last year.

The ads come as Congress faces a government shutdown stalemate, after the Senate rejected dueling short-term government funding proposals from both parties Friday.

They also preview Democrats’ attack lines against Republicans ahead of the midterms. Public polling finds most Americans disapprove of Trump’s tariff policies. But Republicans maintain an edge over Democrats when voters are asked who they trust more on the economy, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released over the weekend.

In addition to Ciscomani, the ads go after Reps. David Valadao of California, Gabe Evans of Colorado, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa, Tom Barrett of Michigan, Mike Lawler of New York, Rob Bresnahanand Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.

The ad airing against Van Orden features a Wisconsin-based influencer, Kate Duffy. Styled after a social media post, it will air vertically on broadcast TV, a first for the group.

© Mariam Zuhaib/AP

Democrats opened investigations, filed motions to subpoena and demanded the resignation of the Federal Communications Commission chair Thursday — a response to the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that represented unusually swift pushback from a party struggling to find its footing.

But it’s not clear how Democrats will translate this relatively united front into an electoral strategy, as the party remains divided over how and how much to talk about threats to democracy ahead of next year’s pivotal midterm elections.

That tension began playing out in their descriptions of Kimmel's suspension, as some Democrats urged their party to retool its messaging.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill to announce legislation to protect free speech, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) attacked President Donald Trump for “trying to destroy our democracy” and acting like “many would-be despots.” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) cautioned “fascism is not on the way, it is here.” But Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running for the U.S. Senate in a high-profile primary, warned that language may be “too abstract for people” and urged Democrats to “distill it down to something people get in their everyday life.”

“This is what we saw in 2024: When you talk about ‘fascism’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘oligarchy,’ it’s too big a concept,” McMorrow said. “People are so overwhelmed and when it’s too big, people just wonder, ‘well, what can I possibly do about it?’”

A House Democratic member, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, warned of “a risk in talking about it in hyperbolic terms,” adding that there’s distinction in framing. “If you’re saying, ‘they're taking away your speech and they're canceling you,’ that’s more powerful than saying, ‘they’re taking away your democracy,’” the lawmaker added.

The Kimmel controversy — and how to talk about it — lands in the middle of an already-inflamed political landscape. Following last week’s killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Kimmel made comments Monday that appeared to align Kirk’s alleged killer with the MAGA movement. ABC announced Kimmel’s suspension on Wednesday night, after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened the network if it didn’t take action, telling a conservative podcaster, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

"It's very clearly part of a crackdown on freedom of speech,” former federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told POLITICO. “If we can't have comedians, let alone law firms or academics or journalists speaking their mind, then this isn't a free country."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement with colleagues lambasting the FCC's "corrupt abuse of power."

Even so, veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod warned that Democrats must not lose focus.

“The main thing needs to be the main thing and the main thing is that people have struggles in their lives in this economy, and Democrats need to keep that the focus," he said, "but that doesn't mean that you can ignore what isn't just a free speech issue.”

Trump celebrated Kimmel’s suspension during a press conference in the United Kingdom on Thursday, while arguing the late-night host “was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else.”

“He said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk,” Trump said. “You can call that free speech or not, he was fired for lack of talent.”

Even some Trump-friendly comedians and podcasters have raised concerns over Kimmel’s suspension. Tim Dillon, who interviewed then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance last year, posted on Instagram: “I am against Kimmel being taken off the air and against people being shot for their opinions. See how easy it is?” One of the hosts of the Flagrant podcast, who interviewed Trump in 2024, said, “in terms of censorship, freedom of speech is more under attack now, honestly, than I think it’s ever been.”

Democrats see it as an opening for breaking through to “people who are not hard partisans,” said Tim Hogan, a Democratic National Committee senior adviser.

“There is a broad audience that’s splintering from Trump’s coalition that understands everyone and anyone could be a target for something they say,” Hogan said. “This is not amorphous, this is going after your right to free speech.”

North Carolina state Sen. Graig Meyer urged his party to “meme this” rather than lecture voters on it, adding that, “yes, it’s authoritarianism,” but “Democrats should talk about it like, ‘Republicans want to take away your laughs,’” he said.

“The left is so bad at doing that type of culturally embedded storytelling and Republicans are so good at it,” Meyer said. “This is a chance to change the narrative around Trump, and it’s a chance to change the cultural narrative around Democrats, being willing to fight and providing an alternative.”

The flurry of controversial events is forcing a party in the political wilderness to confront anew an issue that bedeviled it during the presidential election last year.

Leaning on democracy as a campaign message didn’t help Democrats in 2024, when they deployed it against Trump and he nevertheless won the popular vote. Kamala Harris held one of her final campaign rallies last fall on the Ellipse, the same spot where Trump rallied his own supporters to march on the Capitol.

Several national Democrats said privately that Kimmel and free speech are “not going to be the top midterm issues Democrats are talking about,” one strategist said granted anonymity to discuss it candidly.

“Poll after poll shows that Trump’s threats to democracy aren't a top issue for swing voters, and I don’t see it dominating in TV ads next fall,” said Democratic pollster Brian Stryker. “But sometimes you have to fight for things because it's the right thing to do for the country and not because it's going to win you an election. And if we don't fight now, we may not have elections to fight to win in the future.”

Adam Wren and Cassandra Dumay contributed reporting.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO