When asked to describe Republicans and Donald Trump with one word, and then to do the same for Democrats and Kamala Harris, a focus group participant in western Pennsylvania didn’t hold back.
“Crazy,” said the White woman in her 40s, who hadn’t attended college. After a brief pause, she added, “Preachy.”
This focus group, convened by supporters of Harris shortly after the September presidential debate, consisted of a dozen individuals who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. While they remained uncertain about their votes in the upcoming election, one thing was clear: they planned to vote.
When the moderator asked them to choose between the two words, the woman hesitated but ultimately chose “crazy.” “Because ‘crazy’ doesn’t look down on me,” she explained. “‘Preachy’ does.”
The feedback from this group, along with conversations with Democratic insiders in the wake of the election, reveals a party that is not only unsure about what’s next but also struggling to understand the larger question at hand.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, speaking to CNN after the election, was perplexed by some of the results. “Donald Trump did 8 points better in Illinois than he did against Hillary Clinton, yet Democrats held every office and even gained at the local level across the state,” he said. “What is it about Trump that makes him so uniquely popular? We all have theories, but why don’t we dig deeper to understand it?”
Democrats’ sense of confusion and disillusionment is palpable. It’s not just that they were caught off guard by the election’s outcome—Harris’ team had even predicted an imminent victory late into Election Night—but because it challenges their entire view of the political landscape.
In 2012, after President Obama’s reelection, his campaign team established Battleground Texas, a project born from their belief in a demographic shift, particularly among Latinos, that they thought would reshape the state and secure a lasting Democratic majority. They believed this shift could eventually turn Texas blue by 2028 and lock Republicans out of the Electoral College.
Instead, Latino voters, along with Black men and other marginalized groups, moved toward Trump in greater numbers this year, contributing to a defining moment for the Democratic Party: not only were they facing heavy losses at the presidential level and beyond, but they were also staring down the possibility of being sidelined in Washington with no clear path forward.
Even Texas, once a Democratic target, grew even redder than it had been since Obama’s reelection.
For Democrats, the result is a crisis of identity—grappling with unexpected losses, shifting voter bases, and a profound uncertainty about how to rebuild. The question now isn’t just what went wrong but also where they go from here.