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 damage, 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 lots of the identical methods it was 20 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 fashionable vote loss has compelled a broader reckoning: Successful the favored vote “acted as a form 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,” mentioned Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt College targeted on media, conservatism, and the presidency.
And not using a “however the fashionable 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 completely different form of conservatism than the one related to the 2004 winner,” mentioned 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 will be generously seen 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 improper 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 choice to run for a second time period, the truth that many People truly preferred what Trump was promoting, or any variety of different components.
Although it could take months for what particularly went improper to turn out to be clearer, the 2004 election and its aftermath may 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 almost 10 million votes and getting into the White Home with huge congressional majorities at his again.
What Democrats at present can study 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 World Conflict 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 related, and what they do subsequent could decide whether or not they see a revival within the 2026 midterms and the elections that comply with.
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 improper 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 improper, however the map, aforementioned issues apart, served partially as shorthand for declaring Democrats’ turnout downside. Sure, Kerry had turned out 9 million extra votes than Al Gore had 4 years earlier than, however he nonetheless fell nearly 3 million wanting Bush.
That hole revealed a vulnerability for Democrats: their lack of ability to mobilize a broad coalition in swing states and past that may translate into an Electoral Faculty victory. Kerry couldn’t summon the form 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 concept behind this technique was that Democrats must attempt to compete in each state, maximizing turnout in Democratic areas whereas reducing into Republican margins the place potential.
This yr, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, like Dean, believes a part of the answer may very well be the return of the 50-state technique. They’re not alone: “We can not run in simply the few states that we want,” mentioned Claire Potter, a professor emerita of historical past on the New Faculty. “The Democrats have, in some methods, actually backed off that technique, and I feel they’re improper to have accomplished so.”
The Harris marketing campaign — for very comprehensible causes — didn’t make the most of Dean’s technique. With only some months to marketing campaign, Harris targeted on swing states and choose demographic teams. She largely didn’t go to traditionally “secure” Democratic states. Whereas it’s not clear that she may 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 effectively the 50-states concept has aged. In any case, Hillary Clinton ran up the favored vote whole after profitable huge in solidly blue states, however she received to function president for precisely zero days.
That technique was later credited with serving to Democrats make beneficial properties 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 shouldn’t be one it could 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 among his strengths as a candidate — his army service in Vietnam — right into a legal responsibility via viral assault advertisements.
“There may be this type of disingenuous assault on Kerry because the Harvard boy, as anyone who’s faking having actually fought in Vietnam,” Potter mentioned. “Bush is ready to play the cardboard of being an outsider, although he’s an incumbent, although he went to Yale, although his father was president.”
In response, Democrats sought to reevaluate their general messaging technique. The influential ebook 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. In addition they embraced Dean — dubbed by the Washington Publish in 2005 as an “outsider rebel” who wore beat-up sneakers 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 look on Rogan’s podcast, reportedly for concern of how it might be perceived inside the social gathering.
3) Democrats sought to turn out to be a celebration of concepts
Kerry marketing campaign adviser Kenneth Baer mentioned that, in 2024, Democrats repeated their mistake in 2004 of defining themselves as being the alternative of Republicans.
”Sensible folks appear to have come round to the thought you could’t simply say Trump’s horrible,” Baer mentioned, arguing that Democrats had the identical subject 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 mentioned.
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 Faculty 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 Client Monetary Safety Bureau.
Immediately, 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 reality is, political technique and planning can solely go up to now. And which may be one of many largest classes from 20 years in the past.
The social gathering’s return to energy in 2008 was principally pushed by two components: 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 Conflict (the false pretenses of which got here absolutely to gentle throughout Bush’s second time period); and the 2008 monetary disaster and ensuing financial meltdown.
“The circumstances that may collapse Bush’s help in his second time period had been already in place when he gained reelection,” Hemmer, the political historian, mentioned.
So how Democrats do in 2026, 2028, and past will probably have rather a lot to do with Trump’s efficiency throughout his second time period.
Immediately, preliminary exit polls recommend Trump is unpopular, his proposed tariffs may very well 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 slim Home majority to work with, doubtlessly hampering his agenda.
If such a collapse occurs, nonetheless, Democrats additionally need to be ready to grab on it.