The Democrats' plan to resurrect in the midterms and defeat Trump

WashingtonThe Democrats are seeking to rediscover their voice ahead of this coming November 3rd. Beyond the referendum on Donald Trump, the midterm elections may mark the point where the Democratic Party finds a solution to the identity crisis it is suffering. The elections are the party's first real opportunity to reconcile with a base disillusioned after the 2024 electoral defeat.

One of the first readings of the electoral defeat from two years ago, which has persisted to this day, is that of independent senator Bernie Sanders. "It should not surprise us too much that a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class discovers that the working class has abandoned it," wrote the face of the party's left wing in the midst of the electoral hangover. The statement has been a kind of compass for the rise of the more progressive soul, which has advanced thanks to the Mamdani effect in the New York elections last year.

The arrival of the brand-new mayor caused the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to go from being a fringe group to gaining momentum, to the point that seven members of the group could manage to enter Congress this November. Amidst the left's advance, there are also other names who, like Abdul El-Sayed, are betting on more progressive policies -such as defending public healthcare-, but who refuse the socialist label. "I would prefer to define myself as a capitalist who has actually read about capitalism," El-Sayed told Ed O’Keefe, a CBS News host, during a recent interview. O'Keefe pointed out his ties to the DSA, but El-Sayed insisted: "I am not a socialist."

The meteoric rise of the party's left wing is propelled by a thirst for change among the grassroots, where a strong anti-establishment sentiment has also taken hold. But this trend is part of a broader crisis: the Democrats' difficulty in finding new leadership and defining their political course after Kamala Harris's defeat. "For the first time since 2008, the Democratic Party is, in a way, leaving behind the Obama Administration era," explains Chris Herrmann, coordinator of the United States program at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The analyst defines these midterms as "a moment of introspection" for the party, in which none of the candidates already being mentioned for the 2028 presidential election are linked to the Obama administration. "This hasn't happened since 2008. Because after that came Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, who were obviously both linked to that administration."

The presidential election on the horizon

The moment of impasse coincides with a decade in which Trump has marked the way of doing politics in the United States, with an aggressive style, which is sometimes mistaken for authentic, and which presents his persona as a Washington "outsider".

The spaces and codes through which messages are conveyed have also changed. In 2024, Trump gained support due to the algorithmic push that Elon Musk gave him through the X platform and through the entire alternative circuit of conservative influencers who amplified his campaign themes. One of Zohran Mamdani's successes in New York was precisely the use of social media and how he presented himself as just another citizen. A strategy that has also been replicated in their own way by campaign teams of profiles as disparate as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan or the Presbyterian pastor James Talarico in Texas.

"I think the most important thing about these midterm elections is not so much the specific policies as the way politicians communicate with voters," underlines Herrmann, who points out that a distinctive fact of the candidates in these elections is that "they are not the traditional Democratic candidates who have studied at Harvard, Yale or Princeton." "They are candidates who seem to be much more connected to the communities they want to represent," he highlights.

El-Sayed was a doctor known for working as a Health official and who, after losing the 2018 Democratic primaries, launched a podcast with which he went on to build his own community. Talarico was known in Austin for his past as a primary school teacher in one of the city's suburbs. In fact, if Talarico has managed to make the Senate seat for Texas competitive, it is thanks to a discourse that integrates progressive economic measures with Christian morality.

Faith, a new appeal

This mix has allowed him to reach an electorate for whom voting Democrat was even contradictory, as the party had distanced itself in recent years from the religious side. "Many conservative voters and many undecided moderate voters interpret politics through the prism of their faith," explains Lucas Holtz, a senior political advisor at the think tank Third Way, linked to the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Talarico is not the only case: in Kansas, Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton is challenging Republican Roger Marshall for a seat in the Senate.

Hamilton is a Democrat capable of reciting parts of the Bible from memory during his campaign events while describing the need to go vote as "an act of Christian faith." It is also worth mentioning that Hamilton happens to be the pastor of the largest Methodist church in the entire state.

Despite the great disparity that may exist in the communication styles among the different big names running in these legislative elections, there is a common denominator: the denunciation of corruption. Whether as a cry against the elites of the system who are getting rich or a purely moral critique contrary to Christian values. In Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who is seeking reelection this year, has managed to earn a place on the podium precisely thanks to the toughness with which he denounces Trump's corrupt practices.

In this reinvention to find new ways and languages to reconnect with the base, Herrmann believes that the candidates are also trying to amend one of the great mistakes of the Biden administration; "Biden approved many policies that benefited the American working class, especially that of the deeply Republican and rural states. But the communication with these areas was not based on establishing a connection. The message was almost: 'We are smarter than you and this is what you need.' Therefore, these policies did not translate into any reward at the polls".

The results of this coming November 3rd, beyond quantifying how far the shift to the left that the party is experiencing goes, will also offer an initial snapshot of what the political language is from which to build the 2028 presidential election.