In 2004, life as a Democrat was fairly bleak.
The social gathering misplaced a presidential election to George W. Bush for a second time. Including insult to harm, Democratic nominee John Kerry misplaced the favored vote. The social gathering was seemingly dropping floor, after having gained the favored vote in 2000 and dropping the Electoral Faculty thanks solely to an exceedingly shut (and contested) loss in Florida. It was a special world again then, however Democrats sensed that voters resoundingly had rejected what they needed to provide — even whereas operating towards a Republican candidate broadly thought of weak.
In 2024, life as a Democrat is fairly bleak in most of the similar methods it was twenty years in the past. Ballots are nonetheless being counted after the presidential election, however the Democratic presidential nominee is on observe to lose the favored vote for the primary time in 20 years.
That well-liked vote loss has pressured a broader reckoning: Successful the favored vote “acted as a sort of salve: Sure, the Electoral Faculty could have delivered Bush and Trump the presidency, however on some stage, their administrations had been illegitimate, unsanctioned by the favored will,” stated Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt College centered on media, conservatism, and the presidency.
With out a “however the well-liked vote” fallback, Democrats are confronting a harsh actuality. “For the primary time since 2004, this election felt like an embrace of conservatism, albeit a a lot totally different sort of conservatism than the one related to the 2004 winner,” stated Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the College of Virginia Middle for Politics.
Now, as in 2004, Democrats are participating in what may be generously considered as introspection (or, much less generously, a “round firing squad”) to chart a brand new course again to energy and assess what went so very incorrect this time round. The blame for that’s up for debate: It could have been the economic system, Democrats’ embrace of “wokeness,” President Joe Biden’s resolution to run for a second time period, the truth that many Individuals really preferred what Trump was promoting, or any variety of different elements.
Although it could take months for what particularly went incorrect to develop into clearer, the 2004 election and its aftermath would possibly present some perception into how Democrats can transfer ahead.
In any case, 4 years after the Bush-Kerry debacle, Democrats gained the 2008 election in a landslide, with Barack Obama beating John McCain by practically 10 million votes and coming into the White Home with large congressional majorities at his again.
What Democrats in the present day can be taught from the social gathering’s loss in 2004
There are apparent variations between 2004 and 2024. The aughts election was dominated by 9/11 and the International Battle on Terror that adopted. This yr, these matters barely registered, whereas Trump and Biden’s respective information, the economic system, and the tradition wars took middle stage. Additional, Kerry’s marketing campaign began with profitable a really aggressive main, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris took over after Biden stepped apart and gave her his endorsement.
However the vibes amongst Democrats are comparable, and what they do subsequent could decide whether or not they see a revival within the 2026 midterms and the elections that observe.
General, Democrats took three classes from 2004. Whether or not one believes these classes apply to 2024 relies upon, largely, on what one believes went incorrect for Harris in her loss to Trump. However, given Democrats’ profitable restoration from 2004, it’s a historical past lesson price taking.
1) They pursued a 50-state technique
Following the 2004 loss, a well-liked meme rocketed across the (nonetheless considerably nascent) web: a map that depicted the Democratic “United States of Canada” as present alongside the coasts and a Republican “Jesusland” encompassing the overwhelming majority of land within the US.
If that appears reductive and problematic on a number of fronts, you’re not incorrect, however the map, aforementioned issues apart, served partly as shorthand for declaring Democrats’ turnout drawback. Sure, Kerry had turned out 9 million extra votes than Al Gore had 4 years earlier than, however he nonetheless fell nearly 3 million in need of Bush.
That hole revealed a vulnerability for Democrats: their incapacity to mobilize a broad coalition in swing states and past that may translate into an Electoral Faculty victory. Kerry couldn’t summon the sort of voter enthusiasm essential to match Bush’s sturdy efficiency in rural areas and outer suburbs.
To goose turnout, Democrats regarded to Howard Dean, who ran a populist main marketing campaign however misplaced to Kerry.
Elected as chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee in 2005, Dean turned a proponent of a “50-state technique.” The thought behind this technique was that Democrats must attempt to compete in each state, maximizing turnout in Democratic areas whereas slicing into Republican margins the place attainable.
This yr, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, like Dean, believes a part of the answer could possibly be the return of the 50-state technique. They’re not alone: “We can not run in simply the few states that we want,” stated Claire Potter, a professor emerita of historical past on the New College. “The Democrats have, in some methods, actually backed off that technique, and I believe they’re incorrect to have achieved so.”
The Harris marketing campaign — for very comprehensible causes — didn’t make the most of Dean’s methodology. With only some months to marketing campaign, Harris centered on swing states and choose demographic teams. She largely didn’t go to traditionally “protected” Democratic states. Whereas it’s not clear that she might have stanched the bleeding in these locations, there have been important rightward shifts from New York Metropolis to Southern California.
And it’s not clear how nicely the 50-states idea has aged. In any case, Hillary Clinton ran up the favored vote complete after profitable huge in solidly blue states, however she bought to function president for precisely zero days.
That technique was later credited with serving to Democrats make features within the 2006 midterms and with serving to to place Obama within the White Home in 2008.
And after 2024, the place Democrats misplaced floor in nearly each county within the US, a plan to spice up the social gathering’s recognition nationally is just not one it could possibly afford to disregard.
2) Democrats reevaluated their messaging
In 2004, Democrats didn’t have a response to the rise of the right-wing weblog Drudge Report and Fox Information’s consolidation round Republicans. Kerry was usually solid as an elitist with an costly haircut, and right-wing commentators efficiently turned one in all his strengths as a candidate — his navy service in Vietnam — right into a legal responsibility by viral assault advertisements.
“There’s this sort of disingenuous assault on Kerry because the Harvard boy, as someone who’s faking having actually fought in Vietnam,” Potter stated. “Bush is ready to play the cardboard of being an outsider, regardless that he’s an incumbent, regardless that he went to Yale, regardless that his father was president.”
In response, Democrats sought to reevaluate their total messaging technique. The influential e book Don’t Consider an Elephant! by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff served as a guidebook for reframing debates in their very own phrases and for explaining their coverage positions by evoking values of empathy, equity, and group with out adopting the language of conservatives. Additionally they embraced Dean — dubbed by the Washington Publish in 2005 as an “outsider rebel” who wore beat-up footwear and flew coach, spending most of his time outdoors of DC.
In 2024, Democrats had been once more outflanked by a new Republican media machine — this time, together with the likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to ship their message. Harris, for her half, declined to seem on Rogan’s podcast, reportedly for concern of how it might be perceived throughout the social gathering.
3) Democrats sought to develop into a celebration of concepts
Kerry marketing campaign adviser Kenneth Baer stated that, in 2024, Democrats repeated their mistake in 2004 of defining themselves as being the other of Republicans.
”Good folks appear to have come round to the concept you could’t simply say Trump’s horrible,” Baer stated, arguing that Democrats had the identical difficulty in 2004, when Kerry spent a lot of his time on the marketing campaign path criticizing Bush as a substitute of defining affirmative causes to vote for Democrats. That referred to as for Democrats to “rethink all our insurance policies and our approaches,” Baer stated.
Baer went on to discovered the journal Democracy: A Journal of Concepts as a platform for these concepts. That’s the place Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), then a Harvard Legislation College professor, printed a 2007 manifesto about how monetary merchandise like mortgages and bank cards ought to be regulated by the federal government. That concept would later give rise to the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau.
In the present day, some Democrats say the social gathering nonetheless must higher join with the working class, however Baer famous that there’s disagreement about what meaning and whether or not that ought to contain an financial or cultural strategy.
The bounds of political technique
Democrats would very very similar to a silver-bullet technique that ensures them a post-2004-esque restoration. However the fact is, political technique and planning can solely go up to now. And which may be one of many largest classes from twenty years in the past.
The social gathering’s return to energy in 2008 was principally pushed by two elements: Obama was a generationally politically gifted politician. George W. Bush was a generationally horrible president whose second time period featured a bungled and lethal response to Hurricane Katrina; an much more disastrous and lethal dealing with of the Iraq Battle (the false pretenses of which got here totally to gentle throughout Bush’s second time period); and the 2008 monetary disaster and ensuing financial meltdown.
“The circumstances that may collapse Bush’s assist in his second time period had been already in place when he gained reelection,” Hemmer, the political historian, stated.
So how Democrats do in 2026, 2028, and past will seemingly have quite a bit to do with Trump’s efficiency throughout his second time period.
In the present day, preliminary exit polls counsel Trump is unpopular, his proposed tariffs could possibly be disastrous for the economic system, Democrats could mobilize towards his insurance policies as they did in his first time period, and he could solely have a really slender Home majority to work with, probably hampering his agenda.
If such a collapse occurs, nonetheless, Democrats additionally must be ready to grab on it.
