Election Day 2025 is just around the corner. While it may not be covered with the same intensity as the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats can no longer afford to focus on what happened in 2024.
To win upcoming elections, my fellow Democrats must go beyond criticizing President Trump’s awful actions and policies. They must advocate for programs that most people believe will improve their lives by making America more affordable.
Democratic candidates are doing this now as they campaign in the only two races for governor this year, in Virginia and New Jersey. If they win the Nov. 4 elections, they will serve as role models for Democrats around the country running in the 2026 midterm elections.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, is campaigning on her Affordable Virginia Plan. Similarly, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor in New Jersey, is campaigning on her Affordability Agenda. Both candidates seek to lower the costs of health care, housing, energy and groceries.
Trump seeks to divert attention from affordability by portraying Democrats as extremists who embrace policies far outside the mainstream views of most Americans. He has labeled Democrats “radical left lunatics,” “Marxists and communists and fascists,” and “the enemy from within,” more dangerous than Russia, China and other foreign adversaries.
Spanberger and Sherrill are wisely avoiding endorsing extreme policies that most Americans oppose. Democratic candidates in 2026 should follow their lead. When Democrats go too far left, many voters feel left out of the party, and we don’t get their support.
Democrats must convince a majority of Americans that we are the party that will deliver on affordability and more for everyone. We must also show we will do a better job than Trump and the Republicans at creating jobs at a living wage, making communities safe from crime, protecting public health, and improving public schools, colleges and vocational education.
And Democrats must convince Americans we are the party of honesty, integrity, obedience to the law, respect for the checks and balances that Congress and the courts impose on the presidency, and faithfulness to everything else in the Constitution.
Trump has rejected all these virtues in favor of authoritarian rule, retribution against his opponents with a weaponized Justice Department, and turning the presidency into a giant ATM to pocket billions of dollars for himself and his family.
Trump is pursuing policies that make America less affordable. These include tariffs that make many things we buy more expensive. They also include mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants who fill vital jobs in agriculture, construction and other vital fields. Besides being cruel and unjust, the deportations are creating worker shortages that are driving up prices.
Right now, millions of Americans aren’t impressed by either Democrats or Republicans. The Sept. 30 RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Trump with a public job approval rating of only 45 percent and a disapproval rating of 53 percent.
Trump’s dismal approval numbers are bad news for him politically, but Democrats fare even worse in polling. The Sept. 21 RealClearPolitics average of polls shows the Democratic Party is viewed favorably by just 33 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 59 percent. If those unfavorable views don’t change, Democrats will have a hard time winning control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections and an even harder time in our longshot quest to win a Senate majority.
Centrists, liberals and progressives are advancing competing visions of what Democrats should support. We’ll never agree on everything, so we should concentrate on what unites us. Only Republicans benefit when we spend time, money and energy fighting among ourselves.
I believe the key to Democratic election victories will be turning out our base in big numbers, but also winning votes from beyond our base. This requires capturing the support of independents, non-MAGA Republicans and Americans so uninterested in politics that they don’t bother to vote.
The Census Bureau reported in April that 65 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2024 elections. That means nearly 35 percent of Americans who could have voted did not do so. If we can turn a significant number of these folks into Democratic voters, we will win more elections.
An NBC poll in April asked: “Which party fights for people like you?” It found 24 percent of Americans said only the Republican Party, 23 percent said only the Democratic Party, 15 percent said both parties and 38 percent said “neither party.” Some 47 percent of those who said “neither party” didn’t vote last year.
Democrats must show the “neither party” group that our party can help them achieve better lives.
Republicans have long portrayed government as the enemy of the people, rather than their protector and servant. Trump has continued this mischaracterization, using it to justify the elimination of 300,000 federal employees by the end of this year through layoffs and buyouts, crippling the ability of much of the federal government to meet our needs.
Democrats have long been known as the party of working people, folks struggling to climb out of poverty, people of color and women working to overcome racism and sexism, small-business owners, and young people seeking a good education and entry-level jobs. We still fight for all these people, and as a result it is in the self-interest of most Americans to vote for our candidates.
We are the party that supports the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment right of free expression that is under attack by the Trump administration today. We are the party that embraces the goal of the Pledge of Allegiance to bring Americans “liberty and justice for all.”
And we are the party that works to fulfill the promise of President Abraham Lincoln that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Heading into elections this November and the larger number of races in the 2026 midterms, all this should be our message to Americans.
Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”
