They Dread Trump But Can’t Stop Fighting Each Other: Meet the Democrats

Will this week’s election results bring clarity or just add to the confusion?

(Composite / Shutterstock)

THE FIRST OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS of any presidency mark a critical point for the party out of power, if for no reason other than to prove that it can still get its shit together.

That’s especially true for Democrats this year. The party has spent the last nine months desperately trying to galvanize the country around defeating Trumpism. And Tuesday’s elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City will provide the first real test as to whether that’s happening.

But as these elections have neared, the factionalism in the party has grown more intense. Democrats may be united around the proposition that Trumpism is an existential threat to the country, but they are preoccupied with debates over which type of candidate and approach to politics the party should take to combat it.

“The lessons that we take from these off year elections are really important,” said Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, cofounder of Way To Win, a major liberal donor group.

To a degree, recent off-year election cycles have followed similar patterns. During the 2017 cycle, Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Ralph Northam, came under fire from his own Democratic allies for saying he would oppose “sanctuary cities” in Virginia. Democracy for America (DFA), a progressive grassroots group, pulled its support for Northam in protest.

But back then, the Democratic party was still largely convinced that Trump’s election was an anomaly. And Democrats, by and large, were not beset by a feeling of cosmic dread about their future as a party. Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote. And she was seen as a sui generis flawed candidate. DFA was condemned by others in the party for risking a governor’s race. And Northam, in the end, won convincingly.

Today, the pre-spin among Democrats about the candidates on the ballot and the politics they represent feels far more portentous. That might be because the stakes feel higher. But it also has sparked concerns that the party is botching things at a perilous moment.

Progressive strategists argue that Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric rise in the New York City mayoral race is clear evidence that an economic populist message—one monomaniacally focused on cost-of-living issues—is the best way for Democrats to win back power. They attribute his success to his command of the attention economy. And they argue that Mikie Sherrill’s gubernatorial race in New Jersey is closer than it should be precisely because she’s both too milquetoast and has struggled to articulate a vision—beyond just being anti-Donald Trump. Their main conviction is that Democrats win when they inspire excitement among voters, not just when they present a strong resume and draw a weak opponent—as they argue is the case with Abigail Spanberger in the Virginia governor’s race.

“Sherrill destroys the idea of what a safe Democratic candidate is and make[s] clear that someone who is devoid of vision and has solely an anti-Trump agenda will dramatically underperform in 2026 and 2028 if that is our model,” said Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Spanberger is blessed to have a ridiculous opponent. . . . I think we should be preparing for a real opponent [in 2028] who is well spoken and trying to outflank us on working-people’s issues, not relying on Republicans nominating somebody ridiculous and unelectable.”

Not to shock you, dear reader, but Green’s take is not universally shared among Democrats.

In fact, many party leaders are practically begging their members to stop fawning over Mamdani. They point to polling that shows he is unpopular outside of New York City, that voters outside of major metropolises don’t identify, as he does, as a democratic socialist (let alone a capital-letter Democratic Socialist). Plus, they argue that his current standing in the race isn’t even all that impressive. Polls show Mamdani hovering around 50 percent, well below the 63 percent of the vote that Kamala Harris won in New York City in 2024.

And they’re encouraging others to pause and step back a bit before analyzing Tuesday’s election. A New York City mayoral race is not translatable to many other places in the country. A New Jersey governor’s race is hard to win when your party has held the office for two straight terms.¹

“It is really reminiscent of 2018 when this very charismatic young person wins a very low turnout primary in New York City, goes on to win the general, the whole country loses their collective minds on both the left and the right,” said Matt Bennett, founder of center-left group Third Way, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s election.

Bennett noted that it was actually a group of Democratic moderates who ultimately flipped enough GOP-held seats that year to deliver the party control of the House. “Is your mission to turn a blue place bluer? Or is it to take power away from Trump?” he asked. “Cause then you better sound a lot more like Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill than Zohran Mamdani.”

Tuesday’s elections will provide some insights as to which faction is right. But even then, the public arguing is unlikely to end. Democrats on both sides of the debate may be united in believing that Trump’s return to power demands a newfound ruthlessness about how to win, but they are divided over what that will require. And now that these arguments are increasingly happening in public—via a never-ending stream of memos about which direction the party should go in, X debates, and livestreamed conferences—it can often feel like influential party figures are more invested in fighting each other rather than going after Trump.

The difficulty for Democrats is that they likely need candidates who combine the core insights of both factions while jettisoning their worst instincts. The moderates may be right that the Mamdani model is not replicable outside of New York City. The progressive critiques about the danger of running uninspiring and bland candidates certainly seem legitimate. Ultimately, the party’s success will hinge on whether it can blend those two visions together.

Not everything is doomsdayish, of course. Even amid the factionalism, there are reasons for Dems to feel optimistic. An NBC News poll published Sunday showed that Trump’s approval rating had dropped to 43 percent among registered voters. The survey also found that Democrats lead Republicans on the congressional ballot by 8 points (50 percent to 42 percent), the largest lead that NBC has found for either party since the 2018 midterms.

There also have been some clear achievements for Democrats. Most officials that I spoke with said the fact that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting ballot initiative would likely pass with comfortable margins, which they took as an encouraging sign that there’s significant energy on their side. And however uncomfortable some party strategists might feel about the amount of attention Mamdani has received, even they believe his focus on cost-of-living issues was a smart move that Democrats should emulate in 2026.

“There’s a lot to learn from Zohran Mamdani’s approach to issue prioritization, particularly his focus on affordability. But I also think Democrats need to be wary of extrapolating national lessons from a New York City mayoral race,” said Simon Bazelon, who recently authored a report on why the Democratic party has become unpopular for Welcome PAC, a center-left organization. “If every Democrat was as focused as he is on affordability, that would be good.”

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🫏 Donkey Business:

— Graham Platner continues to bleed campaign staff amid negative stories about his past social media posts and controversy over a tattoo that he got as a Marine that looked like a Nazi symbol. Both his campaign manager and finance director have resigned in the past few days, leading to another round of bruising headlines about the viability of Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine. A few Bulwark readers who live in Maine have reached out to me in the past few days noting that the national coverage about Platner being in deep trouble appears out of step with what they’re seeing in their communities. One reader emailed me to say that he’s actually seen more Platner yard signs go up since the oppo research started to hit.

Meanwhile, Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s main rival in the Democratic primary, declined last week to release her medical records. If she were to win, the 77 year-old governor would be the oldest first-term senator elected in history.

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My open tabs:

— Rahm Emanuel . . . For President?

— The Totally Outlandish, Dead Serious Campaign to Defeat Nancy Pelosi and Transform the Democratic Party

— No One Is Having a Worse Time Than Bill Belichick

1. Indeed, Sherrill’s defenders note that New Jersey voters have not elected governors from the same party three terms in a row in six decades.