The emotional swings of Democrats
Things aren't as bleak as they seemed a year ago. They're also not as rosy as the off-year elections made them out to be.
It’s amazing how mercurial some people get about politics, going from chronically depressed one day or week to almost maniacally ebullient the next.
Yes, I’m talking primarily about Democrats. For many of them, it’s all about “the vibe.” When this phenomenon occurs across an entire group of people, it becomes magnified. In our increasingly insular, partisan, and ideological silos or echo chambers today, it takes on the effect of group polarization.
Two weeks ago, prior to Election Night 2025, many Democrats seemed clinically depressed, having bought into the dominant narrative that the 2024 election was a top-to-bottom repudiation of their party, a disaster across the ballot that reflected a badly damaged party brand.
Few even attempted to reconcile that prevailing view with actual election results, ignoring that Democrats actually gained a couple of seats in the House.
There was also no net change in any of the 11 gubernatorial races last year, nor the seven for secretary of state. The 10 contests for state attorney general yielded a one-seat net loss for Democrats, coming in an open seat in Pennsylvania. Changes in state legislative races were also minimal: In terms of the number of seats, the GOP gained less than 1 percent across contests in 44 states.
In the U.S. Senate, Democrats lost four seats and control of that body, but three of the losses came in ruby-red Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia, where it would have been astonishing if any Democrat could have won statewide. Democrats won four of the five Senate races in purple swing states, losing an incumbent in Pennsylvania but reelecting two in Nevada and Wisconsin, while hanging onto open seats in Arizona and Michigan.
This is not to argue that Democrats had a great night in November 2024, but it certainly wasn’t a massacre or a party-wide repudiation. The 2024 election was a targeted repudiation of President Biden, his administration, and, by extension, Vice President Kamala Harris; if voters had intended to take it out on the party as a whole, the results would have looked quite different.
Now the 2025 results from two weeks ago have sent Democrats into a frenzy in the opposite direction. By any standard, the party had an excellent night in both the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. Just as President Biden depressed his party’s electoral performance in 2021, President Trump did so for the GOP this month. But keep in mind, these are both “indigo states,” blue but with some purple mixed in. In other words, Democrats should win there, absent some confounding factor. So it was hardly a sign of a political revolution taking place.
Nevertheless, many Democrats are in a euphoric mood, exemplified by bold talk of the party now having a chance to win extremely long-shot races in very red states and districts, places that don’t at all resemble indigo states like New Jersey and Virginia. But there remains a solid constituency of progressive online donors in the Democratic Party who are easily motivated by candidates with inspirational and aspirational appeals, or compelling backstories that might make them a good subject for a human-interest piece, but that scarcely make them serious contenders in major-league political contests.
The latest twists all relate to President Trump. There are some tiny but visible cracks appearing in his previously rock-solid base of support, which has given him a dominion over the Republican Party unlike anything either party has seen since Franklin Roosevelt’s control over the Democrats not quite 100 years ago.
Trump has suddenly reversed long-standing positions on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and on selected tariffs for everyday grocery items. A few individual Republican members of Congress have started breaking with the president on certain matters, something that would be completely normal in past presidencies but had not happened in this one. Trump’s approval rating, which had been drifting downward at a slow pace, has started dropping more rapidly over the last six weeks.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think his base will ever abandon him. But things that were normal in previous presidencies are finally starting to happen to him. Last week in National Journal, George E. Condon Jr. drew connections between President George H.W. Bush and Trump, pointing out that in each case, the banalities of domestic policy and politics could not prevent a fascination with playing on the larger world stage. Condon contrasts how little Trump is meeting with actual Americans, elected or not, compared with foreign leaders.
Given how many times people have written Trump’s political obituary, or just said he is finally getting his comeuppance, more than a little caution is in order. The road for all second-term presidents gets bumpy; the surprising thing here is how long it has taken for those bumps to create fissures. If nothing else, it will remind Republicans that there is a finite date to the Trump presidency. It is not immortal, nor is it immune from larger forces shaping his last stint in office.