It may be the conventional wisdom that the 2025 results read anti-Trump, but I think it’s correct. No, he wasn’t on the ballot, but he hovers over everything these days, more omnipresent than God.
Some are calling the 2025 results a victory for the Democratic Party, but I don’t see it that way. I think that some of those who gave Trump his victory last year are jumping ship as they see him operating at the untethered extremes of his agenda in terms of immigration, tariffs, and thumbing his nose at the historic and democratic norms of our nation. Besides, fawning tech trillionaires and gold splashed everywhere isn’t a good look when so many are struggling with grocery prices and affordability.
Other lessons? Good candidates win. Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, and, yes, Zohran Mamdani were good candidates who brought energy, discipline, and focus to their campaigns. None were the ancient hacks that Dems have too-often trotted out of late.
The results in those three races don’t solve the “whither the Democratic Party?” question. Progressives are heralding Mamdani as a template for their future, which seem dubious to me. New York is New York, and its mayoral races get disproportionate attention from the media, much of which is New York-based. Have any New York mayors had subsequent success on the national stage?
Spanberger and Sherrill ran as sane moderates with governing and national security experience. Will that be the template for Democrats in the 2026 Congressional elections and the 2028 Presidential election? That seems to me our best hope. I hasten to add that “moderate” does not, cannot, mean wishy-washy, tepid, or “establishment.” It means not trying to ram stuff down the throats of American voters that they have shown they won’t swallow. It means being very clear about what it is you want to do, if elected, which Kamala Harris never was. And hate it or like it, Trump was very clear about what he wanted to do.
For an excellent analysis of what Democrats have thus far failed to learn from their 2024 failure I recommend this piece from the “Persuasion” site by Yascha Mounk. Mounk makes the case that the moderate center is there for the taking, especially as Trump has taken his non-plurality coalition as a mandate to go extremes, not to mention, gross. Here’s an excerpt from Mounk’s article:
“It is at times tempting to think that American voters don’t know what they want. They were angry at Biden’s lax handling of the southern border but quickly turned on Trump’s heavy-handed immigration policies. They mistrust Democrats on economic policy, fearing that they will raise taxes without courting economic growth, and yet they dislike Trump’s ‘big and beautiful’ budget bill.
“But there is a coherence beneath the apparent confusion. On both economic and cultural issues, most Americans have views that are both moderate and reasonable. Those views don’t merely amount to splitting the difference between the current positions of Democrats and Republicans; they are a principled expression of moderation.” (emphasis added)
In addition to my top take-away, that this limited election showed what the polls also say, that a majority of Americans are not on board for Trump’s wannabe king act, and secondly that good candidates who run good campaigns win. What else?
Number three would be, in agreement with Mounk, that neither party really represents a majority of Americans who don’t want ICE thugs on their streets or National Guard troops in their cities. Nor do they want open borders or slavish DEI regimes running higher education. More from Yascha Mounk:
“Over the last few electoral cycles, America has seemed split into two rigid ideological blocs: Blue America and Red America. But the reality is rather more subtle. On major policy questions, most Americans have reasonable views that aren’t well represented by either party. Far from polarizing into two implacable blocs, Americans are increasingly refusing to identify with either Democrats or Republicans; indeed, the number of independents has steadily risen.
“As Yuval Levin and Ruy Teixeira have argued, this leaves a giant political opening that could allow either party to construct a much broader electoral coalition, one that would likely dominate the next quarter-century of American politics. Both parties have a clear path toward building such an electoral juggernaut by overcoming the special interest groups and ideological constraints that have made them so inflexible. If Democrats want to win elections and put an end to the MAGA movement, they need to be the first to get there.
“That means they need a leader who shares the worldview of the majority of Americans, someone who can fight for an inclusive America without sounding woke and take on special interests without talking like a socialist. That candidate will need the courage to confront the constituencies, from activist groups to progressive billionaires, that currently hold outsized sway in the party. A candidate sufficiently enured to the wrath of the ideological enforcers within the party will talk like a normal person — and actually say something worth listening to when they are given an opportunity to speak to millions of people on TV.”
A closing note on the Seattle mayoral race, which as of this morning shows incumbent Bruce Harrell with a not insubstantial 7-point lead. Yes, there is a pattern in Seattle as votes counted later showing a leftward swing, and that still might bring Wilson into office. But, to my mind, neither of the candidates were great. Harrell was taking a second-term for granted until the primary wake-up call. Toward the end he pushed an “I will stand up to Trump message” (that theme again) which probably helped him.
The overall good news here is that elections do matter and remain the best way for Americans to call a halt to the drift to authoritarianism.
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