The Democratic Party is going to win the midterm. It’s going to win the U.S. House. It’s going to win *most* of the major swing state statewide elections. There’s a chance, albeit I’m still more skeptical than others, that we’re going to flip the Senate. I do not think this is going to be super close. The only thing that might get in the way of it being a bloodbath is that Democrats picked some highly controversial nominees in a few races. Basically if you’re in a blue or swing district or state, and the GOP nominee isn’t a very unique brand, and all you have given the GOP to attack you with is “they’re a liberal,” you shouldn’t make others plans for next year’s swearing in day. Hell, Democrats nailed some nominees in red states this year, and they even might win yet too.

Basically, look at this as a worse inverse of 2024. Everything costs too much. People think the President has lost a step. Foreign policy news is basically all bad, and what’s worse for Trump is that he’s basically Bush now, since he started his own cowboy war in the Middle East. But more than anything, everything costs too damn much. Health care, food, housing, and gas, things that are inevitable for everyone, cost way more than they did. If the Democratic Party were smart, that’s all they’d be saying at all this election. The truth is that you don’t have to pin yourself down on specific policies you’re going to do until you actually know what you can pass, because voters don’t understand that anyway. You say vague things like “restore health insurance subsidies and cuts that were made to Medicaid,” or “we’ll end the war in Iran and get oil flowing from the region, while restoring funding for renewable energy,” and voters will just assume you’re doing the opposite of what they don’t like now. And honestly, you are. A sane political party would realize they’re on the one yard line here and walk into the end zone. We’re not so sane.

The bigger problem isn’t our election rhetoric though, it probably won’t matter. The problem is more what will happen next year. We already have Raskin and others salivating about “oversite” powers. We have incoming members talking about eliminating prisons or borders. We have folks who want to spend the next two years impeaching people in the Administration, despite the fact that it is abundantly clear that nearly no impeachment trial of anyone has really any chance of reaching the constitutional mandates two-thirds Senate vote for removal. They want to “abolish ICE” when Trump probably already has enough money from his “Big, Beautiful Bill” to keep it running for two more years. They have all of the grand plans, and even if the House is a blowout, they’ll be extremely lucky to have 52 Senators to try and pass all of this with, and Chuck Schumer probably leading one more term. In short, they’re going to go down there, promise lots, and probably do little to none of it. this will define the party, at least in part, for 2028 with the public. And they already don’t like us, they’re just tolerating us.

There are things that can be done next year, they’re just not all that sexy. Our military has a depleted stockpile of weapons because of this stupid war, and they’re going to desperately need to replenish them. Force a reversal of Medicaid cuts in exchange for the money. They’re going to want to increase domestic energy outputs to deal with gas prices. Force returns to Biden era funding for clean and renewable energy in exchange. Force increases in funding for affordable housing in exchange for other things Trump wants. Force Trump to agree to popular Democratic policies in exchange for the things he needs to keep the wheels on the bus for two more years. Take tangible, realistic wins, and take them every chance you get.

I don’t expect Democrats to be measured in victory though, and frankly that’s a problem. Many Democrats complain that we’re held to a standard the other side isn’t. This is sort of true, in part because we say we want to use the government to fix things. Also, we just spent a decade calling Trump and his supporters low grade jackasses. We sort of set the high bar ourselves. If we’re viewed as an “Always On Camera” political party, filled with grandstanding and people seeking their viral moment, frankly people don’t take us seriously. Based on what we say, they shouldn’t.

“The Resistance” of 2017 and 2018 was probably a failure for the Delocratic Party and America. Yes, we won a landslide in 2018, but ultimately those wins started to retreat in 2020, and frankly the only reason Biden survived in 2020 while “defund the police” and “green new deal,” and every other stupid slogan was hung around our neck, was that the public didn’t believe Joe Biden was like the rest of the party- then he got into office and a sizable chunk of the public believed he fell in line. We’ll win in 2026. There is no “above the fray” figure right now for 2018 that could outrun how the party will be defined by 2028. That’s a big problem, because America desperately needs to directly reverse course on much of the Trump agenda.