Trump, GOP face disarray. For Democrats, the hard part is coming
By: Amie Parnes (The Hill)
The Democratic Party taking control of Congress in 2026 only means they'll need to be kicked out in 2028 or 2030. Until then, the Democrats will try to kill the filibuster, do away with the electoral college, pack the courts, lie about the national debt, and waste a lot of time on trivial issues affecting tiny segments of the population.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democrats may come out of the midterm elections with control of the House, a small majority in the Senate and a feeling of elation they've been missing for years.
But what comes after that may be the harder part.
Even a decisive win in November would not erase the problems that have plagued the party since its devastating losses in 2024, when Democrats lost the presidency and Senate majority and failed to win back the House.
If they do have a big midterm win in November, it will be because of President Trump's low approval ratings and his handling of the economy amid the ongoing war in Iran, Democrats acknowledge. It won't be because of radical changes or lessons learned on their part.
Democrats say their party is still trying to find a cohesive message and a connection to voters, even as they find themselves in the middle of the worst internal fight in years between the socialist and moderate flanks of the party.
That fight will inevitably spill into the 2028 Democratic primary, with the winning side effectively choosing the next Democratic presidential nominee and its path going forward.
"I think the way we come out of this will matter more than anything," one Democratic donor said. "If we come out too smug, feeling like we've figured everything out, feeling like we know voters and they understand us, we've already lost the next battle."
"We've got some stuff to figure out, even if we win big," the donor added. "We still don't have a clear sense of who we are and what we're for, and we'll have to continue to figure that out."
Recent polling highlights both why voters are motivated to vote in November and their sentiments in casting votes for Congress. They underscore how this election is about Trump and may be more of a negative reaction to him and the GOP.
A Politico poll released this week revealed that half of Democratic respondents said if their party wins control of Congress, it would be because of Trump, while 35 percent said it would be the result of strong Democratic campaigns.
A September CBS/YouGov poll found that 54 percent of Democratic voters were motivated to vote against Trump and Republican policies. Forty-six percent said they wanted to help Democrats enact their own policies.
A Pew Research Center poll from July was even more stark, showing that 81 percent of Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning voters saw their vote as one against Trump.
Some political observers warn that a strong showing in November could deepen the internal feud within the party rather than resolve divisions that have only escalated in recent months. This would set up a debate over which faction deserves credit for a big Democratic Party win in the midterms, one likely to play out in the 2028 presidential contest.
"Look for Democrats to operate under fear and chaos," said Susan Del Percio, the veteran Republican strategist who does not support Trump or the current GOP Congress's policies.
"Once the midterms are over, traditional Democrats will start to reconcile how to best deal with the DSA," she added, referencing the Democratic Socialists of America. That liberal group has been behind a number of left-wing victories by primary candidates this year.
"My best guess is that they will operate from fear, meaning they are afraid of facing their own primaries, which will lead to chaos," Del Percio added.
"The chaos will be the most open and public in the House, unless Jeffries has enough of a majority to govern without them," she said, referring to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.). "However, the 2028 presidential candidates will also have to face off on whether they support the DSA agenda, or if they even recognize the DSA as members of the Democratic Party."
Democrats expect candidates eyeing the 2028 presidential race to make their intentions clear quickly once the midterms are over. It could be a race that attracts well more than a dozen candidates.
After that happens, Democrats will have to start convincing voters that they've had their reckoning, they've learned their lessons and they have policies that the electorate can get behind.
"Democrats are going to have to come out with a proactive, positive agenda that's on offense and doesn't include a noun, a verb and Donald Trump. And I think the time for that starts on Nov. 5," Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. "That's the big project."
One strategist said the party is "fooling ourselves" if they think the results of the midterm elections really mean voters are supporting them.
"People still don't like the Democratic Party and what it stands for, and if we think the results mean differently, we're complete fools, and we're going to be killed in 2028 when Trump won't even be on the ballot," the strategist said. "We have to make this about us and not about Trump. We're so far from that."
Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau said he doesn't feel as strongly. But he agreed that the work isn't done, even with a big midterm elections win.
Democrats, he said, have to keep their sights trained on the economy above all from now through 2028.
"Voters have economic anxiety, and they're looking for economic change," Mollineau said.
While strategists, donors and lawmakers have said Democrats continue to have a messaging problem with voters, Mollineau insisted "it's not a question of message, it's a question of message discipline."
"Can you get everyone on the same page to talk about the same issues so it's lockstep and breaks through," he said.
But Mollineau said while Democrats have come a long way since their losses in 2024, "I don't think all of our problems will be solved until we have a nominee."
"The person who comes out of the primary will set the message and the agenda for the party," he said. "That's the reality."
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Same shit, different party. Democrats will invest more time, money, and effort into electing the 1st woman President than addressing real concerns felt by real people. Expect a lot of kicking the can down the road, pandering to small special interests, and 'Orange Man Bad' spittle spewing outrage.
Might as well pledge that the first thing out a Democratic controlled House will be articles of impeachment. Democrats don't have anything else.
Bullshit.
Ask yourself when the last time the democrates held all 3 branches of government. Now look at what they actually got done despite republican attempts to block it. Compare that to what the republicans have accomplished under Trump's 1st 2 years both last and current administration.
Democrats did some good but didn't do enough.
Republicans didn't do any good and did too much to the detriment of the average American.
Democrats gave us financialized health care. Never before have so many been dependent upon government backed insurance companies to receive basic healthcare. The financial institutions are holding both doctors and patients hostage to extort profit. Thanks a lot, Democrats.
WtH? Medicine in this country became financialized in the late 60's and 70's Then blessed by Congress to make profit.
The beginning of the medical insurance nightmares.
Two thirds of all US personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills. We lead the world by far.
Initiated by the Nixon WH
Amended under Ford & Carter and twice under Reagan.
The failure has the GOP's fingerprints all over it. All for greed.
What exactly are you bitching about? ACAH? Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare or VA?
Private health care is about 65% but slipping because the Baby Boomers are coming aboard Medicare fast
...
That's some serious gaslighting. Thanks Nerm.
I'm talking about the ACA that was jury rigged by Barack Obama. Congress granted President Obama the power to play fast and loose with the ACA implementation to mollycoddle the insurance providers. Democrats have been expanding the insurance customer base by loosening eligibility requirements. By increasing the use of healthcare (subsidized by government) the insurance companies have only grown richer.
I'm not the one who is doing the gaslighting. Or moving the goalposts. Or trying to accuse Republicans for a non-legislated cause of the problem. If Republicans had showered the insurance companies with as much cash as Democrats have then there wouldn't be so much gaslighting to defend the financial institutions.
I'm sorry, but are these ramblings based in fact?
10 million people have lost coverage under Trump. 4.2 million of them kicked off of the ACA
True, it's proof that lobbying works for big business, not much else.
You aren't making the impression of an unbiased observer, is this just the partisan rant of the day or this week?
So you admit that more Americans now have basic healthcare under PPACA than ever before (until republicans started gutting it when they took over the country). Don't forget at the same time democrats were pushing for a public option for Medicare. Republicans blocked that as well.
Says the millions of Americans that were finally able to obtain even the basic level of health insurance after Obamacare rollout.
More Americans now have access to basic health insurance. The insurance companies are the gatekeepers for access to basic health care. Medicare is also an insurance program, not a healthcare program. Medicare and Medicaid allows the government to be the gatekeepers for access to basic health care.
Extravagant expansion of access to health insurance (private and public) has not lowered the cost of health care. ACA created more coded services that are now billable. Free advice from health care providers ain't free any longer.
Aren't those the 10 million that Joe Biden and Democrats added to ACA rolls by temporarily lifting the subsidy cliff? Trump (and Republicans) did not kick anyone off ACA; they only allowed the temporary lifting of the subsidy cliff to sunset as Democrats intended.
Don't you mean that I'm not endorsing your preferred bias?
Affordable medical care is not an insurance problem.
Once again correct.
The American way!!!
Alternative would be socialized medicine. What republicans have claimed PPACA was for over a decade.
Gatekeepers whose motive is NOT a profit margin.
And never will as long as that healthcare is controlled by for profit corporations.
As required by the insurance companies.
Are you talking about ICD codes? Because that wasn't created by the ACA. The original ICD codes were created back in 1763 by a French physician. They have been expanded and modified over time to the current system. The World Health Organization owns the ICD-10 codes. The U.S. version of ICD-10, created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and mandated for use in 2015.
The original intent of insurance was to socialize catastrophic losses. That remains true for most types of insurance.
That's not the case with modern health insurance.
Insurance companies DO NOT provide medical care. It's the medical providers demanding payment.
what is a catastrophic loss in somewhat in the eye of the beholder. A $5000 dollar bill that is patient responsibility is virtually unpayable by some.
No. I am talking about CPT and HCPCS codes. Those are the codes for billable services. And hundreds of new codes are added each year.
The ICD-10 codes describe a patient's illness, injury, or medical condition that justifies providing medical care. Today the diagnostic services to identify potential ICD-10 coded conditions are billable services. Preventive care is billable under CPT and HCPCS codes as services to prevent an ICD-10 coded medical condition.
A routine physical checkup should not be a catastrophic loss. The checkup consists of simple measurements and observations (weight, height, blood pressure, pulse, listening to lungs, checking ears and mouth, reflexes, etc.), a series of lifestyle questions, questions about past medical history, and (for us old farts) a cognition test. My local provider charges my insurance company a little over $700 for a routine checkup.
No, I mean that except for a few weeks recently, you blame the Democrats for everything wrong with this country since
Andrew Jackson was elected; as if they were smart enough to create some master plan to ruin your day,
each and very day.
And it is the insurance companies demanding how they demand payment.
If the votes are there to convict, Trump is IMO —by far— the most suitable PotUS for impeachment and removal from office in our history.
Yep, I agree. But the votes won't be there because Trump is all Democrats have to unify their base. Democrats aren't going to give up their scapegoat.
But Trump is not a scapegoat; he IS the problem.
No, Trump is not the problem. The problem is giving the Presidency too much authority and power. That problem will continue without Trump in office. And Democrats are not going to fix the real problem of too much Presidential power because that limits the abuses the Democratic Party can pursue.
Same shit, different party.
Both are problems. The only good that Trump has done is expose how many cracks are in our system given a rogue PotUS.
'Rogue' is so dependent upon a biased point of view. The only real fix is to return to the original intent, jurisdiction, and authority for the 3 branches of government.
When it comes to Trump, we have an extreme situation. Those who do not recognize Trump as rogue compared to the historical norm are lying to themselves.
They will spend two years fruitlessly impeaching him for saying mean things.
You do not recognize the impeachable offenses of Trump? You think his 'bad' is merely 'saying mean things'??
Some of these people are beyond help, all we can do is make sure they lose.
What exactly, has Trump done in his second term that will have a prayer of getting anywhere near 60 plus votes in the Senate?
I doubt any offense will get 60 votes in the current Senate. But that is beside the point. I asked you about impeachable offenses, not whether the current Congress would convict.
Impeachable offenses are whatever a majority of democrats say they are. So mean tweets will probably be an impeachable offense In a couple months,
the point is he hasn’t done anything in his second term that would actually justify an impeachment that could come close to getting 67 senators to convict him, the actual required number under the constitution. Demcorats will vote to convict him for having bad hair. It’s just pure partisan nonsense. it’ll just be yelling for the sake of yelling and accomplish nothing other than de stigmatizing impeachment.
one could argue that some are interchangeable with Hegseth's impeachment articles;
You continue to ignore the obvious grave abuse of presidential power: illegal tariffs, illegal war, use of federal troops for domestic 'law enforcement', endless law fare/coercion of political enemies, firing of government watchdogs, personal enrichment, etc.
I do not doubt that an investigation would reveal all sorts of insider trading, collusion, special deals to supporters, etc.
And very likely we will see another attempt by the sitting PotUS to steal an election.
Dismissing the obvious fact that Trump is grossly abusing the power of the presidency for his own enrichment, amusement, vengeance, and glorification shows that you will defend this tyrant no matter what.
Just partisan nonsense. If those things are impeachable, every President in your lifetime would have been impeached. Though you are proving my point, for the democrats impeachment basically boils down to "things i don't like" = impeachable and unconstitutional.
ot doubt that an investigation would reveal all sorts of insider trading, collusion, special deals to supporters, etc.
The "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime" Andrey Vyshinsky school of justice. Start with the punishment and figure out a way to justify it
Lol. Proving my point. How dumb is Steve Cohen?
Don't look now but the Department of Education stills exists!
Is this all you have nowadays; just deem Trump criticism partisan? At least show some indication that you know what it means to be partisan. You know, Sean, it is evidenced by always framing things positive for one party and negative for the other.
Criticism of Trump is not partisan; the exact same criticism would be rendered by me if he were of any other party.
That is absurd. No PotUS in our lifetimes has come close to the abuse of power we see from Trump. Other than Trump supporters, do you really think your ridiculous claim would influence anyone?
You are just making shit up and posting it. There is no defense for Trump, so we see this nonsense from his supporters.
Everyone's always picking on poor Donald Trump.
Trumps political career should never have gotten off the ground. By the time Trump blowharded himself into being a moron attacking Obama through "birtherism" in 2011 , the state of Hawaii had already OFFICIALLY stated (two separate times) that Obamas birth certificate was in the state archives and had been personally inspected by the head of the department of health. If Trump was curious, all he had to do was call up the governor of Hawaii's office and ask them what was up. They would have took his call, he was very famous in 2011. That is what an actual titan of business would have done before going out and making a fool out of himself. Instead Trump lied and said he had detectives finding amazing things in Hawaii.
Why he wasn't shunned forever in politics is one of the greatest mysteries - oh wait , there was one small thing propping his political career up - racism. Ta da.
No, I actually distinguish between criticism and the standard for removing an elected official from office. You want to criticize Trump? Be my guest. That you are equating something that justifies criticism with being an impeachable offense is exactly my point.
Criticism of Trump is not partisan; the exact same criticism would be rendered by me if he were of any other party.
It overwhelmingly is. The problem for many Trump critics is others remember how they acted during the Biden presidency.
do you really think your ridiculous claim would influence anyone?
Do you think your opinions claims carry any weight outside of the far left partisans?
I do not criticize him for being an R; I criticize what he does. His party affiliation is irrelevant. However, in your case, his party affiliation grants him blanket immunity from criticism.
If an outrageous abuse of power is not an impeachable offense to you, then what is?
Answer: clearly nothing if the abuser is an R.
Maybe yes, maybe no. in either case not earth shattering news.
You mean like trump, who begged the R's to dump the filibuster?
Says who? Hillary? She's passe.
You obviously have trump confused with the Dems....