The reaction among Democrats to Donald Trump’s return to power has been significantly more subdued than what we saw in 2016 after the mogul’s first shocking electoral win. The old-school “resistance” is dead, and it’s not clear what will replace it. But Democratic elected officials are developing new strategies for dealing with the new realities in Washington. Here are five distinct approaches that have emerged, even before Trump’s second administration has begun.
Some Democrats are so thoroughly impressed by the current power of the MAGA movement they are choosing to surrender to it in significant respects. The prime example is Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the onetime fiery populist politician who is now becoming conspicuous in his desire to admit his party’s weaknesses and snuggle up to the new regime. The freshman and one-time ally of Bernie Sanders has been drifting away from the left wing of his party for a good while, particularly via his vocally unconditional backing for Israel during its war in Gaza. But now he’s making news regularly for taking steps in Trump’s direction.
Quite a few Democrats publicly expressed dismay over Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, but Fetterman distinguished himself by calling for a corresponding pardon for Trump over his hush-money conviction in New York. Similarly, many Democrats have discussed ways to reach out to the voters they have lost to Trump. Fetterman’s approach was to join Trump’s Truth Social platform, which is a fever swamp for the president-elect’s most passionate supporters. Various Democrats are cautiously circling Elon Musk, Trump’s new best friend and potential slayer of the civil-service system and the New Deal–Great Society legacy of federal programs. But Fetterman seems to want to become Musk’s buddy, too, exchanging compliments with him in a sort of weird courtship. Fetterman has also gone out of his way to exhibit openness to support for Trump’s controversial Cabinet nominees even as nearly every other Senate Democrat takes the tack of forcing Republicans to take a stand on people like Pete Hegseth before weighing in themselves.
It’s probably germane to Fetterman’s conduct that he will be up for reelection in 2028, a presidential-election year in a state Trump carried on November 5. Or maybe he’s just burnishing his credentials as the maverick who blew up the Senate dress code.
Other Democrats are being much more selectively friendly to Trump, searching for “common ground” on issues where they believe he will be cross-pressured by his wealthy backers and more conventional Republicans. Like Fetterman, these Democrats — including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — tend to come from the progressive wing of the party and have longed chafed at the centrist economic policies advanced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and, to some extent, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They’ve talked about strategically encouraging Trump’s “populist” impulses on such issues as credit-card interest and big-tech regulation, partly as a matter of forcing the new president and his congressional allies to put up or shut up.
So the idea is to push off a discredited Democratic Establishment, at least on economic issues, and either accomplish things for working-class voters in alliance with Trump or prove the hollowness of his “populism.”
Colorado governor Jared Solis has offered a similar strategy of selective cooperation by praising the potential agenda of Trump HHS secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as helpfully “shaking up” the medical and scientific Establishment.
At the other end of the spectrum, some centrist Democrats are pushing off what they perceive as a discredited progressive ascendancy in the party, especially on culture-war issues and immigration. The most outspoken of them showed up at last week’s annual meeting of the avowedly nonpartisan No Labels organization, which was otherwise dominated by Republicans seeking to demonstrate a bit of independence from the next administration. These include vocal critics of the 2024 Democratic message like House members Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Ritchie Torres, and Seth Moulton, along with wannabe 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer (his Virginia counterpart, Abigail Spanberger, wasn’t at the No Labels confab but is similarly positioned ideologically).
From a strategic point of view, these militant centrists appear to envision a 2028 presidential campaign that will take back the voters Biden won in 2020 and Harris lost this year.
We’re beginning to see the emergence of a faction of Democrats that is willing to cut policy or legislative deals with Team Trump in order to protect some vulnerable constituencies from MAGA wrath. This is particularly visible on the immigration front; some congressional Democrats are talking about cutting a deal to support some of Trump’s agenda in exchange for continued protection from deportation of DREAMers. Politico reports:
“The prize that many Democrats would like to secure is protecting Dreamers — Americans who came with their families to the U.S. at a young age and have since been protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Trump himself expressed an openness to ‘do something about the Dreamers’ in a recent ‘Meet the Press’ interview. But he would almost certainly want significant policy concessions in return, including border security measures and changes to asylum law that Democrats have historically resisted.”
On a broader front, the New York Times has found significant support among Democratic governors to selectively cooperate with the new administration’s “mass deportation” plans in exchange for concessions:
“In interviews, 11 Democratic governors, governors-elect and candidates for the office often expressed defiance toward Mr. Trump’s expected immigration crackdown — but were also strikingly willing to highlight areas of potential cooperation.
“Several balanced messages of compassion for struggling migrants with a tough-on-crime tone. They said that they were willing to work with the Trump administration to deport people who had been convicted of serious crimes and that they wanted stricter border control, even as they vowed to defend migrant families and those fleeing violence in their home countries, as well as businesses that rely on immigrant labor.”
While the Democrats planning strategic cooperation with Trump are getting a lot of attention, it’s clear the bulk of elected officials and activists are more quietly waiting for the initial fallout from the new regime to develop while planning ahead for a Democratic comeback. This is particularly true among the House Democratic leadership, which hopes to exploit the extremely narrow Republican majority in the chamber (which will be exacerbated by vacancies for several months until Trump appointees can be replaced in special elections) on must-pass House votes going forward, while looking ahead with a plan to aggressively contest marginal Republican-held seats in the 2026 midterms. Historical precedents indicate very high odds that Democrats can flip the House in 2026, bringing a relatively quick end to any Republican legislative steamrolling on Trump’s behalf and signaling good vibes for 2028.
The latest Democracy Corps congressional poll also has only a 1% Dem lead.
Off track—
The new LA Times Poll has Democrats leading in the generic Congerssional poll 54-35, and leading among men 51-38. I don’t recall any national poll in the last 20 years which had any Democrat over 50%.
Today’s Rasmussen generic congressional poll is only 42-38, however. And reportedly the White House pollster, Matthew Dodd, is calling the networks in an attempt to spin the story and question the LA Times poll result.
The increase in Latino voters (Hispanic is virtually never used in the southwest) is why many people think Texas will again be a Democratic state within a few years.
It is why California has gone from a marginal Republican state to a strong Democratic state.
Carl,
The 2000 census showed that in the preceding 10 years the total number of Hispanics in Arizona nearly doubled, from 688,338 to 1,295,617, an increase of 607,279. White non-Hispanics were up only slightly more, from 2,626,185 to 3,274,258, an increase of 648,073. The result was that the total Arizona population in 2000 was 63.8% White non-Hispanic, 25.3% Hispanic, 4.5% Native American non-Hispanic, and 2.9% Black non-Hispanic. At that rate of growth since the April 1 ,2000 census date, it’s very likely that a plurality or a majority of new population in Arizona since 2000 is Hispanic.
In Nevada the figures are as follows: Hispanics increased from 124,419 to 393,970 (a 217% increase). White non-Hispanics were up from 946,357 to 1,303,001 (up 38%, probably the biggest increase in White non-Hispanics of any state in the Union in that decade–in most states it’s about 6 or 7 percent)). Total Nevada population in 2000 was 65.2% White non-Hispanic, 19.7% Hispanic, 6.6% Black non-Hispanic, 4.4% Asian. Again it seems likely that a plurality or majority of added population since April 1, 2000, is Hispanic.
In New Mexico, Hispanics were up from 579,224 to 765,386, a 32% increase. White non-Hispanics were up 6%. from 764,164 to 813,495. American Indians were up 26%, from 128,068 to 161,460. Total New Mexixco population in 2000 was 44.7% White non-Hispanic, 42.1% Hispanic, 8.9% American Indian, 1.7% Black non-Hispanic. We have almost certainly passed the point at which added Hispanic population exceeds added White non-Hispanic population since 2000 in New Mexico. There are very likely more Hispanics than white non-Hispanics in New Mexico today.
All of these figures are population, of course, not voters, eligible voters, or registered voters. But they certainly provide evidence of the scale of Hispanic migration to these three states.
According to the 2000 presidential exit polls, 10% of Arizona voters were Hispanic, and they broke 65-34 for Gore. In Nevada, Hispanics were 12%, and they went for Gore 64-33. And in New Mexico they were 32%, and broke 66-32 for Gore. White non-Hispanics in those states went for Bush 38-57 in Arizona, 40-55 in Nevada, and 37-58 in New Mexico.
Ruy,
Can you compare overall population growth in these states with the growth in these states’ hispanic population. Is one outstripping the other? Have new voters essentially been added to the Democratic tally?
Thanks
When thinking about Latino/Mexican American voters in the American Southwest, I think keeping an eye on history is especially instructive. The last time a Catholic U.S. Senator from Massachusetts ran for President, it is a little known fact that Mexican Americans made an incredible difference in that close election. The year was 1960 and the JFK-LBJ Democratic ticket won a squeaker partly on close margins of victory in Texas and New Mexico. TX and NM, along with IL, provided the electoral vote difference between JFK and Nixon that year. During that election Mexican Americans participated in electoral politics at a level not yet seen in this nation through “Viva Kennedy” clubs that, according to historian Ignacio Garcia, trained a whole generation of young activists and shaped Mexican American politics for a generation.
Though Democrats usually have an advantage against Republicans on national polls of Southwestern Latinos, the margin of difference seems much larger now than when a Reagan or Bush I in the 1980s could split large chunks of that vote. Though Bush II rode a significant Tejano following in 2000 and conceeded the Mexican Americans of other Southwestern states, I’m not sure even that is especially likely in this election. As Ruy’s analysis of the AZ, NM, NV numbers demonstrates, this is a fascinating election already! Apologies for the long message.
Now that’s what I call refreshingly straight to the point!!
Eldon
As a Hispanic/Latino voter (though not in the south) I can attest that Latinos are quite aware that Bush is a Fucking Liar.