As Democrats grapple with the reality of a Trump second presidency, they are already debating what to do next for the party.

While former President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 sparked shock and outrage, sending Democrats protesting in the streets and casting ballots in the election that immediately followed, his political comeback against Vice President Kamala Harris represents something far more troubling: a true political need for change. reckoning.

Trump won easily this week; County-level data show rightward swings in nearly every jurisdiction in the country. Even states that were certain to go blue, such as Illinois and New York, gave Democrats their smallest margin of victory in decades. But the question of how Democrats can avoid such a rout in the future has already begun to divide the party into familiar camps, with a looming war between the party’s moderate and progressive wings — with Harris’s handling of Israel and the war in Gaza certainly playing a role.

“I think today, on November 6, 2024, if you’re a Democrat in America, in New Jersey, or wherever you are, if you’re not sober, when you look in the mirror, when you’re coldly honest with yourself. …you are living in a fantasy world,” said Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. he said on wednesday. Biden defeated Trump by 16 points in New Jersey in 2020. This year, Harris beat Trump in the state by just five points.

Exit polls showed Trump performing better in constituencies that have been central to the Democratic base for years, including Black men and Latino voters. Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University, stated that this change is class-based rather than racial or identity concerns, and that it reflects economic concerns such as inflation.

“What progressives have to deal with is that they have positions that they care deeply about, like around LGBT rights as an example, or maybe around solidarity with Palestinians or something like that, but their positions are not popular at all. ” said Hersh Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “I don’t think the broad anti-Trump coalition that was so broad in 2016, 2017 and 2018 is going to be that broad, in part because Trump has drawn a lot of those people to his side.”

Some far-left activists in the party blame Harris’ loss in part on Democrats being too supportive of Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

Justice Democrats, the activist group that helped elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other members of the Squad, wrote to supporters in a post-election message that Democrats could not win if they “refuse to stop funding the bombs.” “We know it destroyed entire generations of families in Palestine.”

Mark Mellman, a longtime Democratic Party pollster and founder of Democratic Majority for Israel, said Democrats should not allow the far left voices in the party to shape Democrats’ future. He didn’t make an argument about Israel; Instead, Mellman suggested that Democrats would be better off electorally if they dialed back extreme voices in the party.

“Some people whose rhetoric and policies are truly extreme and damaging will use this defeat to rally themselves. It’s the right answer for them, but it’s the wrong answer for the party,” Mellman told JI. “None of these people that we’ve lost, none of these non-college educated people, none of these people from rural areas, they’re running away saying I want socialism in my country.”

Some progressives have directed their anger at Harris for reaching out to anti-Trump Republican voters in recent weeks. David Faris, political scientist at Roosevelt University, in the name It was a “strategic mistake” for Harris to campaign with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) in an attempt to win over conservatives, and he repeatedly wrote that Harris’ failure to win more Republican voters “should bury the conventional wisdom that Democrats should court Republicans to the center.” by moving.

But polls show that even if this year has been bad, Democrats’ efforts to reach moderate and even conservative voters are still needed. One September New York Times survey found 44% of registered voters thought Harris was too liberal, while 32% said Trump was too conservative.

“It would be ridiculous if Democrats shifted left in response to this data. “I think everything tells us that the opposite is necessary,” he said. Ravi GuptaA former Obama staffer who co-founded an organization that helps Democratic campaigns recruit staff.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) told JI that a shift to the left would be a misreading of the election results.

“I don’t think the country is at that point,” Gottheimer said. he said He is considering running for governor of New Jersey in 2025. “The voters I spoke to in my district made it clear that they want people who will fight for better prices and who will stand with the US-Israel. Relationships that will fight to lower grocery prices, lower housing prices, and lower child care costs, and are truly willing to work with others to get things done.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) after narrow victory on Long Island said New York Times “Democrats must stop pandering to the far left.” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) echoed that sentiment: “We have swung the pendulum too far to the left.” said Semaphore. Harris trails President Joe Biden by five points in New York.

As we approach the end of the Biden-Harris administration, the role of the Democratic Party’s future standard bearer remains clear.

“This is the end of gerontocracy in the Democratic Party,” said former Obama administration official Kenneth Baer. He added that Democratic governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro need to assert themselves on the national stage: “Almost all of these swing states have Democratic governors who won easily two years ago, so they know something about putting together a winning coalition.” ,” Baer added.

Primary campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterm elections will provide Democrats with an early opportunity to decide which direction to take after Trump’s election.

Stating that the 2018 midterm elections after Trump’s first victory resulted from a Democratic unity that may no longer exist, Gupta said, “I hope there are clearer factions ideologically this time.” “In 2018, it was kumbaya and there was a lot less ideological debate.”

Party primaries tend to attract the most committed voters, the party’s core activist base. Therefore, although political trends indicate that a moderate candidate will perform better in the general election, Democrats may prefer more ideologically liberal candidates in the primaries.

“It might be good for the party to be moderate, to be aggressively moderate. But they’re going to have to do it through their primaries,” Tufts’ Hersh said. “And I’m not sure they can.”