Many will be reading this post election day, but I am writing the Sunday before. Democrats appear poised to capitalize on nearly two years of chaos and scandal during Trump’s second term, reclaiming control of Congress.
Democratic voters appear particularly motivated to turn out this year, based on early voting returns. Republicans, meanwhile, are spending heavily to defend Trump districts, a sign that even traditionally safe territory may be slipping from their grasp.
Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the party’s current minority leaders in the House and Senate, will likely assume leadership of the new Congress. But both will inherit a party struggling to reconcile its increasingly influential progressive wing with an establishment that has sought to marginalize it.
Jeffries, despite maintaining strong support here, has faced criticism nationally for what is seen as a tepid response to Trump’s agenda and his refusal to discipline Democratic lawmakers who have joined Republicans on consequential procedural votes. Schumer, meanwhile, faces greater troubles, with his approval ratings among voters in both New York and nationally reaching historic lows.
Their challenge will extend beyond opposing Trump. They will have to unite a Democratic coalition whose divisions were laid bare during this summer’s primaries, when progressive challengers overcame establishment-backed candidates
Yet even after voters settled those contests, attacks on progressive nominees from within the Democratic Party have continued.
In Michigan, the Senate primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens became a particularly bitter example of the party’s internal divisions. Although Stevens lost the primary, criticism of El-Sayed from prominent Democrats has continued. Figures including power broker Neera Tanden and party strategist James Carville have joined Republicans in attacking El-Sayed over Israel.
The dispute reached an extraordinary conclusion Sunday when Stevens endorsed Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers, abandoning her party’s candidate just two days before Election Day. She stood alongside Rogers, who along with Trump has portrayed El-Sayed as a covert operative of the Muslim Brotherhood, and compared El-Sayed’s rhetoric to Nazis.
Stevens’ decision is hardly the only example. In Maine, Gov. Mills declined to endorse progressive Senate nominee Troy Jackson, despite eventually announcing that she voted for him. Over here, both Jeffries and Schumer, as well as Gillibrand withheld their endorsements from Zohran Mamdani after he defeated Cuomo in the primary.
The Democratic establishment has insisted in recent months that the party must be a “big tent,” capable of accommodating a broad range of political perspectives. Yet that principle has frequently seemed to come with an ideological asterisk. Progressive candidates like Mamdani and El-Sayed, who have campaigned on policies such as universal healthcare and more aggressive economic reforms while challenging the party’s longstanding consensus on Israel, have faced particular resistance from establishment figures.
What size is the tent, really?
So how big is too big a tent for Democrats? The past two election cycles suggest that the party’s leadership has struggled to make room for candidates as different as El-Sayed and Stevens, Mamdani and Cuomo, or Jackson and Mills.
The contradictions are especially glaring when establishment-backed candidates fail to win their own primaries, only to see party figures continue to undermine the nominees who replace them. More than $60 million was spent on Stevens’ campaign and the broader Michigan primary fight, including substantial support from outside groups such as EMILY’s List. After losing, Stevens ultimately threw her support behind a Republican who has campaigned on an agenda sharply at odds with not just her 2026 campaign, but the entirety of her life’s work as a Democratic politician.
Meanwhile, Mamdani, whom establishment Democrats once feared would become a political liability for the party nationwide, has emerged from his first year as mayor with strong approval ratings and considerable influence over the direction of Democratic politics in New York.
The lesson should be difficult for Democratic leadership to ignore: voters are increasingly willing to reject the candidates and political strategies that party insiders present as their safest options. Voter attitudes are always in flux and subject to persuasion from talented politicians. So, continuing to treat progressive nominees as liabilities, even after they have won their primaries, simply risks alienating the very voters Democrats need to build a durable governing coalition.
If Jeffries and Schumer hope to lead a successful Democratic Congress, they will need to do more than oppose the Trump administration. They must help articulate an affirmative vision that gives voters something to support, rather than simply someone to vote against.
Trump will not be on the ballot in 2028. Eventually, Democrats will have to persuade voters to support their own agenda, not merely reject the Republican alternative. Perhaps they should take a page from Mamdani’s book and offer voters something beyond the promise of being less bad than the other guy.
