After major 2024 defeats, the Democratic Party searches for a new direction
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DETROIT — The Democratic Party begins 2025 with several looming questions about its future.
Among them: how to recover from losing the White House and the Senate, in an election that saw Democrats lose ground across nearly every demographic group; who will lead its national party apparatus; and how it will handle President-elect Donald Trump's second term.
But as Trump prepares to retake the White House Monday, Democratic leaders have highlighted other results that show November's losses are not fatal.
For example, many down-ballot Democrats outperformed the top of the ticket in competitive races, with the party managing to gain one seat in the House. That shrunk the margin for an already-tight GOP majority that struggled with infighting during the last Congress.
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Democrats also saw record fundraising last year, and point to years of behind-the-scenes investment in voter data and campaign resources that they say has created a more coordinated and robust party infrastructure for future election cycles.
"No DNC has ever invested more resources into strengthening our state parties than this DNC," Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Thursday. "So as a former state party chair, as a former state party vice chair and now as DNC chair, I take great pride in passing along this mantle to the next generation of Democratic national leadership."
Harrison is not seeking a second term as leader of the DNC, so the current 448 DNC members will elect a new chair and other leadership positions at the party's winter meeting on Feb. 1.
What new leadership will bring
At an in-person forum in Detroit Thursday, candidates seeking to help run the DNC largely agreed on the path forward for Democrats to regain power and the trust of voters who stayed home or supported Trump: year-round organizing efforts, more resources for state and local parties and spreading the Democratic message beyond traditional and friendly media sources.
Without control of the White House or either chamber of Congress, the new DNC chair is likely to be one of many national faces that will help shape the party's messaging until the next presidential election, rather than serve as a singular figure with outsize influence dictating the path ahead for Democrats.
The two leading candidates for chair, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Chair Ken Martin and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, offered their views on how the role should fit into the larger party ecosystem.
Martin said he thinks Democrats should go on the offense against Trump and positioned himself as a more authentic representative of the party's working class constituents than Wikler.
He also noted the party has a deep bench of Democratic elected officials who are the most effective messengers for what the party stands for.
"I mean, who better to talk about public safety than our mayors? Who better to talk about disaster relief than county commissioners? Who better to talk about education funding and other issues on the state level than our governors?" he said. "And so we have to tap into the rich, rich, rich diversity of elected officials we have throughout this country who are actually delivering on our party values right now."
For his part, Wikler said Democrats should make their opposition known if and when Trump has unpopular policies around things like health care, education and Social Security. He also touted organizing victories in the purple state of Wisconsin compared to Martin leading the more-reliably blue Minnesota, and said that was the type of experience needed to head the party.
"Candidates are the people who carry the message to voters," Wikler said. "A DNC chair needs to energize volunteers, needs to inspire people to run for office, needs to inspire people to donate, needs to lift people up, then we need to mobilize, and that means building a strategy in each state."
When to fight, when to seek common ground
It's not just national party leaders trying to decide whether a second Trump term should be met with full opposition, or an effort to find common ground where possible.
Members of Congress are also split, especially around the major Republican policy priority of illegal immigration.
A Republican-crafted measure that would direct federal officials to detain and deport migrants without legal status who have been charged, arrested or convicted of burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, also known as the Laken Riley Act, cleared a key procedural vote Friday in the Senate.
Ten Democrats joined with the GOP majority to advance the bill, while 48 Democrats in the House voted to pass that chamber's version of the bill earlier this month.
Then there are Democratic elected officials who will be on the ballot in 2026 — or who could run for the party's presidential nomination in 2028 — who find themselves in a balancing act of signaling willingness to work with Republicans while also defending the party's ideals.
"Now I don't want to pretend we're always going to agree, but I will always seek collaboration first," Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a speech at the Detroit Auto Show Wednesday. "I won't go looking for fights. I won't back down from them, either, 'cause I'm not here to play games. I've got a job to do."
While the Democratic Party searches for new leadership and grapples with its direction as the party out of power, Republican unity around Trump and his visions for governance provides a sharp contrast.
This week, members of the Republican National Committee voted to keep Michael Whatley, Trump's pick to lead the national party, as chair while celebrating the success of the party's integration with Trump's campaign and political views.
Copyright 2025, NPR
