Ten days have passed since Democrats delivered one of the most consequential midterm victories in modern U.S. history. The scale of the Republican defeat has drawn comparisons to the post-Watergate elections of the 1970s. But for Democrats, the harder task begins now: converting an electoral backlash against Donald Trump into a durable political project. They achieved their main objective, but the hard part starts now.

Their most important challenge will be convincing voters who turned their backs on the party of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that a new generation of leaders has answers to the problems they face in their daily lives. Looking ahead to the 2028 presidential election, Democrats will have to organize internally, decide what policies to offer and, above all, determine which wing of the party will take the lead: establishment centrists, such as Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next Speaker of the House, or progressives led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Two things seem certain. First, the top priority is bringing soaring prices under control. The high cost of gasoline, housing, food, healthcare and virtually every other necessity of daily life helps explain election results that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described as “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans.”

The challenge, however, is that Donald Trump will remain in the White House for another two years and has threatened to veto any major legislation emerging from Congress. It is also unclear who would reap the political benefits of any improvement in Americans’ quality of life ahead of 2028: the president’s party, or the Democrats, who emerged from the midterms with control of both chambers.

“The American people don’t want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf. We ran on affordability. We won on affordability. And now it’s our job to govern on affordability,” Jeffries said Thursday on Morning Joe. That view is widely shared within the party.

Little interest in impeachment

A second lesson from the midterm election is that Democrats have little interest in pursuing impeachment proceedings against Trump. Such an effort would consume enormous political energy and, as previous attempts demonstrated, is unlikely to produce the desired outcome. Rather than removing the president from office, it could once again provide him with a powerful platform.

Democrats are equally reluctant to refight the culture-war battles over transgender rights and other identity issues that conservatives have so effectively weaponized in recent years. Perhaps no one has captured the party’s mood more clearly than Gina Hinojosa, the governor-elect of Texas: “The left-right paradigm just does not meet the moment of our time,” she said. “This is about 99.9% of us in the same boat against 15 billionaire tech guys who are frankly controlling government. And that’s what the people voted against in this election […] And we didn’t just have Democrat supporters, we had independent supporters and Republican supporters.”

Dave Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, sees a similar dynamic at work. In a video call, he argues that over the past decade Democrats have paid a steep political price for culture-war battles, which have undermined the party’s appeal among working-class voters, including members of minority groups such as Black and Latino Americans. “There is a consensus among the party’s factions that they now have to focus on the economy and equal opportunity,” said Hopkins, whose latest book, Polarized by Degrees, examines how the educational gap and the culture war have transformed U.S. politics. “The problem is that the recipe for achieving that improvement varies greatly depending on which leaders propose it.”

Two competing visions

The internal battle has not yet begun, but few doubt that it will eventually emerge. As Democrats move to advance legislation, the question will be which vision of the party prevails.

Centrists have taken comfort from the scale of the party’s victory in the House of Representatives. With only a handful of races still to be called, Democrats already hold 255 seats, with female lawmakers in the party surpassing 100 for the first time.

That gives the Democrats a sizable cushion above the 218 seats required for a majority, making it difficult for the party’s left flank to use the threat of defections as leverage in internal negotiations. As a result, the scenes of dysfunction that frequently marked the past two years, when Republicans controlled the House by just four seats, are unlikely to be repeated.

The breadth of the Democratic Party’s success in these midterms across virtually every corner of the country, with the notable exception of Florida, which now stands as the Republican Party’s last major stronghold, undercuts an argument that progressives had already begun to make. Ocasio-Cortez, who threw herself into campaigns such as that of Abdul El-Sayed, viewed his race as a test of the left’s electoral strength. If a candidate like him could win in a swing state such as Michigan, then perhaps she, too, could begin to contemplate a presidential run.

The problem for progressives is that El-Sayed won, but so did a host of centrists across the South and the Midwest. And the Democrats who delivered the most commanding victories, including Jon Ossoff in Georgia and James Talarico in Texas, are not identified with the party’s left wing.

It is also striking how Democratic leaders have adopted a message tightly focused on Americans’ everyday concerns, insisting that their priority lies at home rather than abroad.

El-Sayed, the incoming senator who has emerged as one of the rising stars of the left, has justified his opposition to aid for Israel by arguing that a country grappling with its own social problems cannot prioritize helping others abroad. “I don’t believe it’s my responsibility to buy defensive weapons for a foreign government when our kids are defenseless against schools that have been underfunded for a very, very long time,” he said before the election.

Mark Brewer, a professor at the University of Maine, agrees that the party is shifting toward domestic priorities: “Democrats have taken note of the lessons of Trump, who became very popular with his promise of America First. The problem is he said he would keep the country out of unnecessary foreign conflicts, but he ended up starting a war [against Iran] of his own accord. Also, Israel is increasingly less popular. All this will affect Democrats’ future decisions.”

And finally, who is waiting in the wings with an eye on the 2028 presidential race? At this stage, predictions are futile. A wide field of contenders is likely to take shape over the coming months, ranging from former vice president Kamala Harris, who is making less and less effort to conceal her interest in another run, to Ocasio-Cortez, as well as senators such as Jon Ossoff and Mark Kelly and governors including Josh Shapiro. The contest is wide open, and it will remain so until January 2028, when the Democratic primaries begin. This time, in South Carolina.

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