The party’s primary voters are the party. They’ve been picking candidates who are taking the Democratic Party in a different direction and by and large addressing its horrible brand problems.

In the past two years, no mainstream statewide candidate has lost to a challenger from the Bernie Sanders wing. In fact, two members of “the Squad” — Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri — lost their House seats in Democratic primaries last year.

The reason is the great majority of Democratic voters hate the activist, elite agenda that dominated the Democratic Party under President Joe Biden.

Biden’s vision was shaped by President Donald Trump’s reaction to the 2017 Charlottesville rally and police execution of George Floyd in 2020. Biden rightly called attention to long-standing racial injustices and the need for new policies to address them.

But he also embraced a critical view of American history that prioritized racial justice. The administration saw people through their group identities and created campaigns and policies that were unpopular and crowded out talking about economic issues and people’s finances during an extended cost-of-living crisis.

Biden ended Trump’s border policies and welcomed an increase in legal refugees. But when Biden dropped pandemic-era immigration restrictions, he lost control of the border. And Republican governors shipped the “illegal immigrants” to the volatile cities.

Eventually, Biden and Senate Democrats came to support bipartisan measures to control the border. But the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and activists opposed them. That position was out of touch with Hispanic voters who favored deporting the new undocumented immigrants in their cities. In a Democracy Corps poll in November, voters cited getting control of the border as their top reason for voting against Vice President Kamala Harris.

And activists and elites pushed the Biden administration to withhold federal funds from states that failed to introduce gender-neutral bathrooms and require that transgender athletes participate in women’s sports. Yet half of Democrats said they want to ban it. They were warm or very warm to government “banning transgender male athletes participating in women’s sports.” And take note of this: Sixty percent of White Gen Z and about 70 percent of Black and Hispanic voters strongly supported government barring their participation.

As Black Lives Matter protests sometimes led to looting and attacks on police, activists and “the Squad” championed “defunding the police.” The mantra haunted Democrats as cities faced growing violent crime during the pandemic. Voters thought Democratic mayors lost control of crime, violence and homelessness. And Democratic leaders lost the support of the police and law enforcement.

Crime and violence became increasingly important for Black and Hispanic voters. Democrats have had a base of strong electoral support among Black and Hispanic people, Gen Z, millennials and unmarried women. In an October poll by Democracy Corps, almost half of the Democratic base gave a “very cool” response to the phrase “defund the police.”

These doubts are central to not only why Trump won but also why the Democratic Party is so unpopular with Democrats. That’s the reason we are confident in the kind of leaders Democrats will nominate.

We salute Mamdani’s running on affordability in the city and putting the cultural issues on a back burner. Republicans however won’t leave them there. Democrats will get on with challenging the special interest agenda and winning.

Last year, Biden was unpopular with Gen Z and millennials who saw him and his party as out of touch. Biden presided over the end of critical support to households during the pandemic and spiking inflation, yet the diminished president never explained why.

In 2026, cost of living will concentrate the mind. Republicans are about to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill packed with tax cuts for big corporations, as they did in 2017 before the midterms. Voters think Republicans believe in “trickle-down economics,” and that will set up a powerful choice for 2026.