Five months before the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats are well-positioned to reclaim the US House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, but primary candidates remain deeply divided over how to craft a message that resonates with a skeptical electorate, according to party officials and operatives interviewed by the Guardian.
The Democratic National Committee released its long-awaited post-election autopsy in May after months of internal pressure and a drawn-out process that DNC Chair Ken Martin acknowledged had created a distraction. The report, according to the Guardian’s account, did not address President Joe Biden’s age — widely seen as a central liability of the 2024 campaign that forced him to drop out in July 2024 — nor the war in Gaza, a key schism on the left during the election. Martin wrote in a blog post that he had initially withheld the report to avoid “creating a distraction,” but that the delay itself became an even bigger one.
On the ground, candidates said voters rarely bring up the autopsy. “It’s less about the bickering amongst Democrats and more about folks feeling like there are fewer people who give a shit in politics,” said Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin, as quoted by the Guardian.
Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator and Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, said she recently held a roundtable with Trump voters in a swing county to understand their views. One man told her he voted for Trump because Trump promised to blow up the system, bring jobs back to the US and end wars. McMorrow said Democrats cannot assume that voters angry at Trump will automatically transfer their support. “I just don’t want Democrats to take for granted that Republicans are giving us every opportunity, but we got to be aggressive, we got to fight, and we got to fight for people and make some people uncomfortable,” she said.
Chris Rabb, a state lawmaker from Philadelphia who won his primary in the bluest district in the US and faces no general election challenger, said he believes establishment politics is also on the ballot. Voters need to feel the party is committed to the “people closest to the pain” rather than the donor class, he said. “If you never have to worry about losing, who’s holding you to account?” Rabb said.
The debate over the party’s direction has taken on an added urgency as the DNC’s autopsy — criticized for its lack of detail and data — failed to provide a unified diagnosis. Other groups, from centrists to progressives, have published their own versions of what went wrong in 2024.
Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official running for US Senate in Michigan, said voters have a “broader frustration” with the party and a lack of leadership on issues from healthcare costs to US spending on bombs abroad. “These are the issues that keep people up at night, and they feel like the party is just completely absent from the playing field, trying to fight the last battle, and even then, fought it poorly,” El-Sayed said.
The party’s strategic divide is visible in primary contests across the country. Some candidates are charting a moderate path, while others have embraced left-wing populism. Democrats in red and rural states have argued for years that the party must invest more time and money in areas it had previously written off, rather than concentrating on seven to 10 battleground states. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said national messages have tended to represent coastal areas.
Curtis Hertel Jr, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said two county parties in his state that were defunct for more than a decade are now back online. He described walking in a parade at the Mesick mushroom festival, in a deep red part of the state, where he was told he would be yelled at and spit on. Instead, he said, “People were actually excited that a Democrat was actually showing up to have a conversation.”
Hertel recalled a line from the film “The American President” — “If you don’t give people water, they’ll drink sand” — and said Trump “is bullshit and blame” who wins through division. “We’ve got to give people water,” Hertel said. “If we’re not the party fighting for higher wages or lowering the cost of healthcare, if we’re not the party of making childcare more affordable or making it easier for a family to own a home, there won’t be a party in America that’s fighting for those things.”
In Arizona, Stacy Pearson, a Democratic consultant, said campaigns are tailored toward winning over independents and moderate Republicans. Democrats have struggled to define what they are for, she said, instead just saying they are “against that tinfoil hat brigade.” But she said the party is getting better. “Folks are frustrated with this system, and the parties are the system,” Pearson said. “What we find is that, particularly Democrats in Arizona, who are a minority, just want sanity.”
In a swing district in western Wisconsin, Rebecca Cooke, who is running to unseat Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden, said voters often dismiss her when she says she is a Democrat. But if she starts with her background and values, they become more open. “They want people in Congress that really give a shit about their livelihood, their farm, their public school, their hospital, and that’s whether they’re a Democrat or a Republican,” Cooke said.
Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager of the 2024 Biden and then Harris campaigns, wrote in the Bulwark that Democrats are likely to win the House and maybe the Senate this year, but that those wins would “paper over” a structural problem. “Our party still speaks the language of, and to the priorities of, people who care about our institutions and believe they basically work,” he said. The multiracial working class that used to be part of the coalition wants a party “on their side against a system that isn’t working for them,” according to Flaherty.
Hong, the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate, said there is a lot of local energy around organizing and protesting, especially with broader opposition to Trump. She believes Democrats can expand their base and bring back working-class voters who feel betrayed by the president. “It’s amazing how many people will say: ‘Dems have to start saying not just who we’re fighting against, but what we’re fighting for,’” Hong said. “And then there’s an awkward pause, and I wait for someone to say something. And I wish we could say we’re fighting for the worker, we’re fighting for freedoms, we’re fighting to keep our rights and protect our neighbors, and I think we have to take that message to people.”