Democrats told to earn back trust after midterm wins
DENVER — Democrats gathered in Denver for a two-day conference that was part victory party and part sober look at the road ahead. The “What’s Next” conference, hosted by the group Majority Democrats, was scheduled long before Democrats outperformed expectations with their best electoral performance since Watergate.
It brought together rising stars such as incoming Iowa Gov. Rob Sand and Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico, along with strategists, organizers, state and federal lawmakers and potential presidential contenders. Held at a concert hall with colorful artwork of party figures around the venue, the event featured sessions including “What Voters Want” and “What Needs To Change.” Speakers overwhelmingly stressed that Democrats have to earn back trust.
“We won races in places where we haven’t won in a long time, even in some places where we’ve never won. And the message shouldn’t be that [voters] are fully embracing the Democratic Party,” Colorado Rep. Jason Crow said in an interview. “It took us decades to dig ourselves in a hole and to push people away from us, and it’s going to take us more than one cycle to earn that trust,” said Crow, one of the party’s recruitment co-chairs.
A party on probation
Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, took the party to task for not investing more in the South and in Black voters. “When we say that Black voters are the base of our party, then I ask why are we not investing in a region of the country that on Tuesday night just proved everybody wrong of what is possible,” Clayton said to much applause. “Rural America deserves the investment from the Democratic Party and we must run towards communities that our party has run away from.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Democrats shouldn’t rest on their laurels. “I think we are adequately politically traumatized by the last few cycles, so that we will not draw the wrong lessons from all of this,” Buttigieg said. “Because here’s the thing: it is yet to be written whether what we just experienced is one more oscillation from one side to the other and back, or whether it is the beginning of a tectonic movement changing American politics.” He said Democrats can learn from the current White House on two fronts: “a bias towards action and a readiness to get things done coming out of the gate and at the very same time a readiness to plan for the long-term.” He added that Democrats should come out of the gate strong, with a rapid-fire series of bills to lower the cost of living.
Presumptive next Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries told the audience he has plans to do just that, with an agenda that includes reversing Medicaid cuts, banning congressional stock trading and mid-decade redistricting, establishing a statutory right to abortion, and overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that did away with limits on political spending by corporations and unions.
The conference was peppered with potential presidential contenders, including Buttigieg, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego and California Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the few progressive speakers. No one announced an official run, but many gave previews of their theory of the case. “I do think it’s important that whoever we hire to be the chief executive of this country knows how to run something, knows how to get stuff done, knows how to not just have a vision but knows how to deliver on it,” Shapiro told reporters. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who had previously been weighing a possible White House bid, told reporters he is no longer considering it and is instead pursuing the top leadership post in the Senate.
Should Democrats work with Trump?
Throughout the conference, Democrats debated whether and how to work with the Trump administration to deliver meaningful change for voters. “If slapping Trump’s name on it and putting it in gold letters would get it through — hell yes, I would do that,” Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said. Talarico agrees. “The American people cannot wait two years for change, so we must work with President Trump,” Talarico said. “We should make the final two years of his presidency the most productive of any American presidency.”
But New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill added a note of caution, describing the president as a bad faith actor. “The art of the deal to Trump is he figures out what you want, he leverages the you know what out of you, and keeps taking, taking, taking, and never delivers,” Sherrill said. “My advice to Sen. Talarico is if Trump wants to work with us, we will lay out the agenda, and he can sign it.”
