Democratic Party

SAN FRANCISCO — State Sen. Scott Wiener couldn’t wait any longer. The once-in-a-generation political opening he’d eyed for years had arrived, he decided — whether the grand dame of San Francisco politics agreed or not.

On Wednesday, Wiener, 55, a prolific and ambitious lawmaker, formally announced his candidacy for the San Francisco congressional seat held for nearly four decades by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 85, who remains one of the party’s most powerful leaders and has yet to reveal her own intentions for the 2026 race.

“The world is changing, the Democratic Party is changing, and it’s time,” Wiener said in an interview with The Times. “I know San Francisco, I have worked tirelessly to represent this community — delivering housing, health care, clean energy, LGBTQ and immigrant rights — and I have a fortitude and backbone to be able to deliver for San Francisco in Congress.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced Wednesdat that he will run for the congressional seat currently held by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

(Josh Edelson/For The Times)

Wiener’s announcement — which leaked in part last week — caught some political observers off guard, given Wiener had for years seemed resigned to run for Pelosi’s seat only once she stepped aside. But it stunned few, given how squarely it fit within the broader political moment facing the Democratic Party.

In recent years, a long-simmering reckoning over generational power has exploded into the political forefront as members of the party’s old guard have increasingly been accused of holding on too long, and to their party’s detriment.

Long-serving liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruffled many Democratic feathers by declining to step down during Barack Obama’s presidency despite being in her 80s. She subsequently died while still on the court at the age of 87 in 2020, handing President Trump his third appointment to the high court.

Californians watched as the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another D.C. power player from San Francisco, teetered into frailty, muddled through her final chapter in Washington and then died in office at 90 in 2023. The entire nation watched as President Biden, another octogenarian, gave a disastrous debate performance that sparked unrelenting questions about his age and cognitive abilities and cleared the way for Trump’s return to power last year.

Visitors walk past a bust of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein at San Francisco City Hall. The former mayor of San Francisco served in the Senate until she died in 2023 at age 90.

(Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

As a result, age has become an unavoidable tension point for Democrats heading into next year’s midterm elections.

It has also been an issue for Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), 83, the former Senate majority leader who has faced health issues in recent years and is retiring in 2026 after more than 40 years in the Senate. Other older Republicans are facing primary challenges for being perceived as too traditional or insufficiently loyal to Trump or the MAGA movement — including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), 73 and in office since 2002, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), 68 and in the Senate since 2015.

For decades, many conservatives have called for congressional term limits in opposition to “career politicians” who cling to power for too long. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and David Trone, a Maryland Democrat, renewed those calls on Wednesday, announcing in an op-ed published in the New York Times that they would co-chair a national campaign to push for term limits.

However, perhaps because they are in power, the calls for a generational shake-up in 2026 have not been nearly as loud on the Republican side.

Democratic Party activists have sounded the alarm about a quickening slide into gerontocracy on the political left, blamed it for their party’s inability to mount an energetic and effective response to Trump and his MAGA movement, and called for younger candidates to take the reins — while congressional leaders in their 70s and 80s have increasingly begun weighing their options in the face of primary challenges.

“It’s fair to say the political appetite for octogenarians is not high,” said Eric Jaye, a veteran Democratic strategist in San Francisco.

“The choice in front of people is not just age,” said Saikat Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old tech millionaire and Democratic political operative who is also running for Pelosi’s seat. “We need a whole different approach and different candidates.”

“There’s like this unspoken rule that you don’t do what we’re doing in this moment. You sit out and wait your turn,” said Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, 40, who has launched a primary challenge to Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), who is 81 and has been in Congress since 2005. “But I’m not going to wait on the sidelines, because there is an urgency of now.”

A national trend

The generational shift promises to reshape Congress by replacing Democrats across the country, including some who are leaving without a fight.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, 78 and a senator representing New Hampshire since 2009, said in March that it was “time” to step aside.

In Illinois, Sen. Richard Durbin, 80 and a senator since 1997, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, 81 and in the House since 1999, both announced in May that they would not run again. Durbin said it was time “to pass the torch,” while Schakowsky praised younger “voices” in the party as “so sharp.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, 78 and in the House since 1992, announced his retirement last month, saying that “watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party.”

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks at a news conference.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Other older Democrats, meanwhile, have shown no intention of stepping aside, or are seeking out new roles in power.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, 77, recently announced she is running to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is 72 and has been in the Senate since 1997. Mills has tried to soften concerns about her age by promising to serve just one term if elected.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, 79 and in the Senate since 2013, has stiffly rebuffed a primary challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton, 46, accusing Moulton of springing a challenge on him amid a shutdown and while he is busy resisting Trump’s agenda.

In Connecticut, Rep. John Larson, 77, who has been in office since 1999 and suffered a complex partial seizure on the House floor in February, has mocked his primary challengers’ message of generational change, telling Axios, “Generational change is fine, but you’ve got to earn it.”

David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., speaks at the 2022 March for Our Lives.

(Leigh Vogel / Getty Images for March For Our Lives)

David Hogg, a 25-year-old liberal activist who was thrust into politics by the 2018 mass shooting at his Parkland, Fla., high school, is among the party’s younger leaders pushing for new blood. He recently declined to seek reelection as the co-vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to bring primary challenges to older Democratic incumbents with his group Leaders We Deserve.

When he announced that decision in June, Hogg called the idea that Democratic leaders can stay in power until they die even if they don’t do a good job an “existential threat to the future of this party and nation.” His group fundraises and disperses money to young candidates it backs.

When asked by The Times about Pelosi and her primary challengers, however, Hogg was circumspect, calling Pelosi “one of the most effective and consequential leaders in the history of the Democratic Party.”

A shift in California

Pelosi is not the only older California incumbent facing a primary challenge. In addition to Matsui, the list also includes Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Porter Ranch), who is 70 and has been in office since 1997, and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), who is 74 and has been in office since 1999.

But Pelosi’s challenges have attracted more attention, perhaps in part because her departure from Congress would be the clearest sign yet that the generational shift sought by younger party activists is fully underway.

Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as House speaker in 2007, surrounded by her grandchildren and children of other members of Congress.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

A trailblazer as the first female speaker of the House, Pelosi presided over two Trump impeachments. While no longer in leadership, she remains incredibly influential as an arm-twister and strategist.

She played a central role in sidelining Biden after his debate meltdown, and for the last couple months has been raising big money — a special skill of hers — in support of California’s Proposition 50. The measure seeks voter approval to redraw California’s congressional districts to better favor Democrats in response to Trump’s pressure campaign on Texas and other red states to redraw their lines in favor of Republicans.

Pelosi has used Prop. 50 in recent days to deflect questions about her primary challengers and her plans for 2026, with her spokesman Ian Krager saying she “is fully focused” on the Prop 50 fight and will be through Nov. 4.

Chakrabarti, who helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) unseat a longtime Democratic incumbent in 2019, said he sees even more “appetite for change” among the party’s base today — as evidenced by “mainstream Democrats who have voted for Nancy Pelosi their whole life” showing up to his events.

And it makes sense, he said.

For decades, Americans have watched the cost of essentials skyrocket while their wages have remained relatively flat, Chakrabarti said, and that has made them desperate to support messages of “bold, sweeping economic change” — whether from Obama or Trump — even as long-serving, mainstream Democrats backed by corporate money have worked to maintain the status quo.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leaves a news conference at the Capitol in 2019. At left is Saikat Chakrabarti, who was her chief of staff and is now a candidate for the congressional seat held by Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag)

He said it is time for Democrats to once again push bold, big ideas, which he plans to do — including Medicare for all, universal child care, free college tuition, millions of new units of affordable housing, a new economy built around climate action, and higher taxes on billionaires and mega-millionaires like him.

Wiener, who also backs Prop. 50 and would be the first out gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress, said he cannot speak to Pelosi’s thinking — or to Politico reporting Wednesday that Pelosi is considering dropping out and backing San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan in the race — but is confident in his readiness for the role.

Wiener agreed with Chakrabarti that big ideas are needed from Democrats to win back voters and make progress. He also said that his track record in the state Legislature shows that he has “been willing to take on very, very big fights to make significant progressive change.”

“No one has ever accused me of thinking small,” he said — citing his success in passing bills to create more affordable housing, reform health insurance and drug pricing, tackle net neutrality, challenge telecommunications and cable companies and protect LGBTQ+ and other minority communities and immigrants.

“In addition to having the desire to make big progressive change, in addition to talking about big progressive change, you have to be able to put together the coalitions to deliver on that change, because words are not enough,” Wiener said. “I’ve shown over and over again that I know how to do it, and that I can deliver.”

Political analysts said a message of big ideas will clearly resonate with some voters. But they also said that Pelosi, if she stays in the race, will be hard to beat. She will also face more serious questions than ever about her age and “her ability to function at the extraordinarily high level” she has worked at in years past, Jaye said, and will “have to answer those questions.”

If Pelosi decides not to run, Chakrabarti has the benefit of self-funding and of the current party enthusiasm for fresh faces, they said, and anyone — Chan or otherwise — would benefit from a Pelosi endorsement. But Wiener already has a strong base in the district, a track record for getting legislation passed and, as several observers pointed out, a seemingly endless battery.

“Scott Wiener is an animal. The notion of work-life balance is not a concept he has ever had. He is just like a robotic working machine,” said Aaron Peskin, who served 18 years on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, some alongside Wiener.

Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland) speaks to reporters at the Capitol in September.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, which supports young progressive candidates, said there is pent-up demand for a new generation of leaders, and “older Democrats, especially those in Congress, need to ask themselves, ‘Am I the best person to lead this party forward right now?’”

Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland), 48, won her seat in 2024 after longtime Rep. Barbara Lee, 79, who had been in the seat since 1998, decided to run for Oakland mayor. Simon said that to her, “it’s not necessarily about birthdays” but who can do the job — “who can govern, who can mentor and who can hold this administration accountable.”

As a longtime community activist who worked with youth, Simon said she is “extremely excited” by all the energy of young Democratic office seekers. But as a freshman in Congress who has leaned on Lee, Pelosi and other mentors to help her learn the ropes, she said it’s also clear Democrats need to “have some generals who are really, really tried and tested.”

“What is not helpful to me in this moment,” Simon said, “is for the Democrats to be a circular firing squad.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump is showing little urgency to broker a compromise that would end the government shutdown, even as Democrats insist no breakthrough is possible without his direct involvement.

Three weeks in, Congress is at a standstill. The House hasn’t been in session for a month, and senators left Washington on Thursday frustrated by the lack of progress. Republican leaders are refusing to negotiate until a short-term funding bill to reopen the government is passed, while Democrats say they won’t agree without guarantees on extending health insurance subsidies.

For now, Trump appears content to stay on the sidelines.

He spent the week celebrating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal he led, hosted a remembrance event for conservative activist Charlie Kirk and refocused attention on the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, his administration has been managing the shutdown in unconventional ways, continuing to pay the troops while laying off other federal employees.

Asked Thursday whether he was willing to deploy his dealmaking background on the shutdown, Trump seemed uninterested.

“Well, look, I mean, all we want to do is just extend. We don’t want anything, we just want to extend, live with the deal they had,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Later Thursday, he criticized Democratic health care demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, “then we can have serious conversations about health care.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that approach before leaving for the weekend, saying Trump is “ready to weigh in and sit down with the Democrats or whomever, once the government opens up.”

Thune said he’d also be willing to talk, but only after the shutdown ends.

“I am willing to sit down with Democrats,” Thune posted on social media Friday.

“But there’s one condition: End the Schumer Shutdown. I will not negotiate under hostage conditions, nor will I pay a ransom,” he added.

Frustration is beginning to surface among rank-and-file Republicans, with bipartisan conversations breaking out on the Senate floor as members look for ways to move things forward. Still, even those Republicans admit little happens in Congress without Trump’s direction.

Leaving the Capitol on Thursday, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “We’re not making much headway this week.” For things to progress, Murkowski acknowledged Trump may need to get more involved: “I think he’s an important part of it.”

“I think there are some folks in his administration that are kind of liking the fact that Congress really has no role right now,” she added. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

Trump has not been slowed by the shutdown

While Congress has been paralyzed by the shutdown, Trump has moved rapidly to enact his vision of the federal government.

He has called budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has taken the opportunity to withhold billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and lay off thousands of federal workers, signaling that workforce reductions could become even more drastic.

At the same time, the administration has acted unilaterally to fund Trump’s priorities, including paying the military this week, easing pressure on what could have been one of the main deadlines to end the shutdown.

Some of these moves, particularly the layoffs and funding shifts, have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown, ruling that the cuts appeared politically motivated and were carried out without sufficient justification.

And with Congress focused on the funding fight, lawmakers have had little time to debate other issues.

In the House, Johnson has said the House won’t return until Democrats approve the funding bill and has refused to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Democrats say the move is to prevent her from becoming the 218th signature on a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on releasing documents related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

So far, the shutdown has shown little impact on public opinion.

An AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Democratic Party, similar to an AP-NORC poll from September. Four in 10 have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Republican Party, largely unchanged from last month.

Democrats want Trump at the table. Republicans would rather he stay out

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said Republicans have shown little seriousness in negotiating an end to the shutdown.

“Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point,” Schumer said Thursday.

Frustrated with congressional leaders, Democrats are increasingly looking to Trump.

At a CNN town hall Wednesday night featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both repeatedly called for the president’s involvement when asked why negotiations had stalled.

“President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,” Sanders said.

Ocasio-Cortez added that Trump should more regularly “be having congressional leaders in the White House.”

Democrats’ focus on Trump reflects both his leadership style — which allows little to happen in Congress without his approval — and the reality that any funding bill needs the president’s signature to become law.

This time, however, Republican leaders who control the House and Senate are resisting any push for Trump to intervene.

“You can’t negotiate when somebody’s got a hostage,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who added that Trump getting involved would allow Democrats to try the same tactic in future legislative fights.

Trump has largely followed that guidance. After previously saying he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health insurance subsidies, he walked it back after Republican leaders suggested he misspoke.

And that’s unlikely to change for now. Trump has no plans to personally intervene to broker a deal with Democrats, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The official added that the only stopgap funding bill that Democrats can expect is the one already on the table.

“The President is happy to have a conversation about health care policy, but he will not do so while the Democrats are holding the American people hostage,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Thursday.

A product of the Congress Trump has molded

In his second term, Trump has taken a top-down approach, leaving little in Congress to move without his approval.

“What’s obvious to me is that Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t do much without Donald Trump telling them what to do,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

His hold is particularly strong in the GOP-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson effectivelyowes his job to Trump, and relies on his influence to power through difficult legislative fights.

When Republicans have withheld votes on Trump’s priorities in Congress, he’s called them on the phone or summoned them to his office to directly sway them. When that doesn’t work, he has vowed to unseat them in the next election. It’s led many Democrats to believe the only path to an agreement runs through the White House and not through the speaker’s office.

Democrats also want assurances from the White House that they won’t backtrack on an agreement. The White House earlier this year cut out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.” And before he even took office late last year, Trump and ally Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan funding agreement that both parties had negotiated.

“I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in.”

Both parties also see little reason to fold under public pressure, believing they are winning the messaging battle.

“Everybody thinks they’re winning,” Murkowski said. “Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing. And that’s what’s happening right now. The American public is losing.”

Cappelletti and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.

“If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”

In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.

“It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.

Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.

After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.

“You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.

Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.

“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.

Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.

Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.

Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.

“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party’s standing in public opinion polls has sunk to its lowest point in more than 30 years. Many of the party’s own voters think their leaders aren’t fighting hard enough against President Trump. In one survey, the words they used most often were “weak” and “tepid.”

“The party is in shambles,” said James Carville, the political strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House after a similar bout of disarray a generation ago.

And yet, in recent weeks, the beleaguered party has begun to exhibit signs of life.

Its brand is still unpopular, but its chances of winning next year’s congressional elections appear to be growing; in recent polls, the share of voters saying they plan to vote Democratic has reached a roughly 5% lead over the GOP. Potential presidential candidates, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, are competing noisily for the title of fiercest Trump-fighter. And they have an ace in the hole: As unloved as the Democratic Party is, Trump is increasingly unpopular, too, with an approval rating sagging to 40% or below in some polls.

“There’s no requirement that people love the Democratic Party in order to vote for it,” Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said last week. “In an era of negative partisanship, people are motivated to vote more by dislike of the other party than by love for their own.”

So Carville, despite his diagnosis of “shambles,” thinks things are looking up in the long run.

“The Democratic Party’s present looks pretty bad, but I think its future looks pretty good,” he said. “I think we’re going to be fine.”

He cited several straws in the wind: the Democrats’ new energy as they campaign against Trump; the encouraging poll numbers on next year’s congressional elections; and an impressive bench of up-and-coming leaders.

“The talent level in the current Democratic Party is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Whoever comes out on top of that competition is going to be a pretty strong candidate.”

But that nomination is three years away — and meanwhile, Democrats face daunting hurdles. For one, Trump has pressed Texas and other Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps to cement GOP control of the House of Representatives — an effort that could succeed despite Newsom’s attempt to counter it in California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a measure to redraw California’s congressional map to aid Democrats.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

The Democrats, by comparison, remain leaderless and divided — arguing over the lessons of their 2024 defeat and debating how to regain their lost support among working-class and minority voters.

In a historical sense, the party is going through a familiar ordeal: the struggle a party normally faces after losing an election.

So Carville and other strategists have sketched out variations of what you might call a three-step recovery plan: First, get out of Washington and rally public opposition to Trump. Second, focus their message on “kitchen table issues,” mainly voters’ concerns over rising prices and a seemingly sluggish economy. Third, organize to win House and Senate elections next year.

“We have to do well in 2026 to demonstrate we’re not so toxic that people won’t vote for us anymore,” said Doug Sosnik, another former Clinton aide.

They’re arguing over the lessons of defeat and debating how to regain lost support among working-class and minority voters.

In battling Trump, they say they’ve found a starting point.

“We’ve found our footing. We’ve gone on the offensive,” argued Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who spent most of the summer campaigning across the country. “Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for billionaires have given us a message we can unite around.”

They still have plenty of differences over specific policies — but a spirited debate, some say, is exactly what the party needs.

“The most important task of the Democratic Party is to organize … the most robust debate Democrats have had in a generation,” said William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former Clinton aide who argues that the party needs to move to the center.

Here’s what most Democratic leaders agree on: They’ve heard their voters’ demands for a more vigorous fight against Trump. They agree that they need to reconnect with working-class voters who don’t believe the party really cares about them. They need to cast themselves as a party of change, not the status quo. And they need to begin by regaining control of the House of Representatives next year.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) says the Democrats have “found our footing.”

(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)

Most Democrats also agree that they need to focus on a positive message on economic issues such as the cost of living — to use this year’s buzzword, “affordability.”

But they differ on the specifics.

Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have focused on “fighting oligarchy,” including higher taxes on the wealthy and government-run health insurance.

Khanna, a Silicon Valley progressive, is campaigning for a program he calls “economic patriotism” — essentially, industrial policies to spur investments in strategic sectors.

Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a blunt-spoken populist, wants to make capitalism do more for ordinary workers. “Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “We’re afraid of saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.’”

And from the party’s centrist wing, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel describes his program as “build, baby, build,” arguing that Democrats should focus on making housing affordable and expanding technical and vocational education.

A sharper debate has opened over social and cultural issues: Should Democrats break with the identity politics — the stuff Republicans deride as “woke” — that animates much of their progressive wing? Moderate Democrats argue that “wokeness” has alienated voters in the center and made it impossible to win presidential elections.

“I think there’s a perception that Democrats became so focused on identity that we no longer had a message that could actually speak to people across the board,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NPR last month.

The controversy over transgender women and girls in women’s sports has become an early test. Newsom, Buttigieg and Emanuel have broken with the left, arguing that there’s a case for barring transgender women from competition. “It is an issue of fairness,” Newsom said on his podcast in March.

Their statements prompted fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates. “I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” Emanuel joked in an interview with conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly in July.

Other Democrats have tread more cautiously. “We need to make a compelling economic vision … our first, second and third priority,” Khanna said. Meanwhile, be said, “we can stay true to our values.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin was blunter. “We have to stand up for every LGBTQ kid and their family who want to play sports like any other kid,” he said last week.

Those battles will play out over the long campaign, already in its first stirrings, for the next presidential nomination — the traditional way American political parties settle on a single message.

“It takes time for a party to get up off the mat,” acknowledged Sosnik, the former Clinton strategist. “We didn’t get here overnight. We’re not going to get out of it overnight.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his social media posts mocking President Trump, his podcast interviews with right-wing influencers and his push to redraw California’s congressional districts are all in service of one goal: making the Democratic Party look anything other than weak.

“The essence of the challenge to the party is weakness,” Newsom said during an on-stage interview Wednesday at an event hosted by the news outlet Politico.

Newsom said some of his more combative messaging choices, including sitting for interviews with Fox News host Sean Hannity and debating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were efforts to break the cycle of Democrats responding to grievances ginned up by right-wing media, rather than setting their own agenda.

The same applies to his bombastic social media posts, posted by the governor’s media office, mocking Trump’s unhinged missives (complete with capital letters and exclamation points) and his new online store, called the Patriot Shop, that is peddling a tank top that says, “Trump is not hot,” among other not-to-subtle digs at the president. Newsom said he’s even toying with offering a “Trump corruption” crypto coin, a shot at the president’s own cryptocurrency, which the governor called a grift so great that it makes “dictators blush.”

Newsom said the problem with the Democrats, who are shut out of every branch of government in Washington, D.C., was best summed up by President Clinton after his party was shellacked in the 2002 midterm elections: American voters, given the choice, prefer “strong and wrong to weak and right.”

“Our party needs to wake up to that,” Newsom said. “We have to use every tool at our disposal to not only assert ourselves, but prove ourselves to the American people.”

Newsom’s comments come as he flirts with a 2028 presidential bid and the Democratic Party’s popularity hits record lows.

Proposition 50, the redistricting measure that California voters will see on their ballot Nov. 4, is in the same combative vein, Newsom said.

At Newsom’s urging, leaders at the Capitol shoved the measure through the state Legislature and onto the ballot in record time last week. If voters approve the measure, California would scrap its independently drawn congressional lines for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections in favor of partisan districts that could help California Democrats win as many as five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, helping the party’s effort to win control and neutralize Trump’s far-right agenda.

Democrats have cast the effort as a way to counter the Texas GOP, which recently redrew the state’s congressional districts to help Republicans pick up five House seats.

A quarter of Latinos who supported President Donald Trump in the November election are not guaranteed to vote for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, according to a new national poll by Equis, a leading research and polling group.

Last week Equis, alongside progressive think tank Data for Progress, released a July memo that summarized key findings from a national poll of 1,614 registered voters, conducted between July 7 and July 17.

This time frame coincides with some notable turning points in politics: namely, when Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law, as well as his execution of mass deportations and controversial handling of the Epstein files.

Respondents were asked, “If the 2026 election for United States Congress were held today, for whom would you vote?” Only 27% replied that they would vote for a Republican candidate, marking a significant political party drop from the 45% who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

A quarter of those polled said they were not sure whom they would vote for (16%), would vote for someone else (5%), or would not vote at all (4%).

This shaky political alignment comes at a critical time for Republicans, who are banking on continual Latino support in 2026 — especially as Texas Republicans plan to flip five blue seats under a newly proposed congressional map.

The Equis study also found that 63% of Latinos disapproved of Trump’s job as president in July, a slight uptick from polling numbers in May, when 60% disapproved. This rating seems to reflect broader sentiments regarding the state of the U.S. economy: 64% of Latinos rated the economy as “somewhat or very poor,” while only 34% viewed it as “somewhat or very good.”

However, a disapproval of Trump does not mean Latinos have rushed to back the Democratic Party. Half the Latinos polled said Democrats care more about people like them, versus the 25% who said Republicans care more. Meanwhile, 17% said they believe that neither party cares.

Swing voters — including those who Equis calls “Biden defectors,” or voters who elected Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024 — are twice as likely to say that neither party cares about people like them (38%).

“Growing dissatisfaction with Trump offers Democrats an opportunity, but only if they are willing to capitalize on it,” the July memo states.

Overall, Trump’s national approval ratings are taking a nosedive, according to aggregate polling by the New York Times, which notes that Trump’s approach to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation has angered his base.

On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for the files; lawmakers believe they could implicate Trump and other former top officials in the sex-trafficking investigation.

Trump’s anti-immigration policies have also likely shifted his popularity. Early July Gallup polling revealed that Americans have grown more positive toward immigration — 79% of Americans say immigration is a “good thing” for the country, which marks a 64% increase from last year and a 25-year record high.

William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was the last commander in chief born a British subject and the first member of the Whig Party to win the White House. He delivered the longest inaugural address in history, nearly two hours, and had the shortest presidency, being the first sitting president to die in office, just 31 days into his term.

Oh, there is one more bit of trivia about the man who gave us the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison was the last politician to lose his first presidential election and then win the next one (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson managed that before him). Richard Nixon lost only to win way down the road. (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the only two to win, lose and then win again.)

Everyone else since Harrison’s era who lost on the first try and ran again in the next election lost again. Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and lost twice. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan each ran three times in a row and lost (Clay ran on three different party tickets). Voters, it seems, don’t like losers.

These are not encouraging results for Kamala Harris, who announced last week she will not be running for governor in California, sparking speculation that she wants another go at the White House.

But history isn’t what she should worry about. It’s the here and now. The Democratic Party is wildly unpopular. It’s net favorability ( 30 points) is nearly triple the GOP’s (11 points). The Democratic Party is more unpopular than any time in the last 35 years. When Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Democrats should be having the opposite effect, 63% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the party.

Why? Because Democrats are mad at their own party — both for losing to Trump and for failing to provide much of an obstacle to him now that he’s in office. As my Dispatch colleague Nick Cattogio puts it, “Even Democrats have learned to hate Democrats.”

It’s not all Harris’ fault. Indeed, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who encouraged him to run again.

Harris’ dilemma is that she symbolizes Democratic discontent with the party. That discontent isn’t monolithic. For progressives, the objection is that Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough. For the more centrist wing of the party, the problem is the Democrats are fighting for the wrong things, having lurched too far left on culture war and identity politics. Uniting both factions is visceral desire to win. That’s awkward for a politician best known for losing.

Almost the only reason Harris was positioned to be the nominee in 2024 was that she was a diversity pick. Biden was explicit that he would pick a woman and, later, an African American running mate. And the same dynamic made it impossible to sideline her when Biden withdrew.

Of course, most Democrats don’t see her race and gender as a problem, and in the abstract they shouldn’t. Indeed, every VP pick is a diversity pick, including the white guys. Running mates are chosen to appeal to some part of a coalition.

So Harris’ problem isn’t her race or sex; it’s her inability to appeal to voters in a way that expands the Democratic coalition. For Democrats to win, they need someone who can flip Trump voters. She didn’t lose because of low Democratic turnout, she lost because she’s uncompelling to a changing electorate.

Her gauzy, often gaseous, rhetoric made her sound like a dean of students at a small liberal arts college. With the exception of reproductive rights, her convictions sounded like they were crafted by focus groups, at a time when voters craved authenticity. Worse, Harris acquiesced to Biden’s insistence she not distance herself from him.

Such clubby deference to the establishment combined with boilerplate pandering to progressive constituencies — learned from years of San Francisco and California politics — makes her the perfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Her choice to appear on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” for her first interview since leaving office was telling. CBS recently announced it was terminating both Colbert and the show, insisting it was purely a business decision. But the reason for the broadcast network’s decision stemmed in part from the fact that Colbert narrow-casts his expensive show to a very small, very anti-Trump slice of the electorate.

“I don’t want to go back into the system. I think it’s broken,” Harris lamented to Colbert, decrying the “naïve” and “feckless” lack of “leadership” and the “capitulation” of those who “consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy.”

That’s all catnip to Colbert’s ideologically committed audience. But that’s not the audience Democrats need to win. And that’s why, if Democrats nominate her again, she’ll probably go down in history as an answer to a trivia question. And it won’t be “Who was the 48th president of the United States?”

@JonahDispatch

If you’re still looking for someone to blame for Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, don’t just look at the usual suspects — the MAGA die-hards, the QAnon crowd or your uncle screaming at Fox News. Consider the bros at your local gym’s squat rack, the Discord server or the gaming lounge who suddenly swung right — or, better yet, consider blaming the Democrats who decided those guys didn’t matter. Yeah, nice work, geniuses.

Recent focus groups conducted by the centrist Democratic group Third Way, with the polling firm HIT Strategies, show that many young men feel criticized, overlooked and talked down to by a party they see as hostile to their values and concerns. This echoes similar feedback from last fall, when young male voters told pollsters that the Democratic Party “has somehow become the anti-male party.”

If you’re wondering why this siege mentality hasn’t softened, it may be because the condescension and antagonism persist — especially among progressive elites whose statements are often conflated with the Democratic Party.

July alone offered a plethora of examples. And lest you think this is from the fever swamps of the internet, consider a few selections from the New York Times.

First, we got “The Boy Crisis Is Overblown,” which shrugs off boys’ educational struggles, instead suggesting that boys expect others (women) to pick up the slack, both at home and in school. Then came “The Trouble With Wanting Men,” a literary masterclass on how dating men amounts to unpaid emotional labor. And to round it out, “Why Women Are Weary of ‘Mankeeping,’” which blames men for … being human? Having different priorities than their girlfriends and wives?

See a pattern?

None of these pieces are entirely wrong. Boys and men are only human, and there are good guys and bad guys. But if you’re a dude just trying to stay afloat in a rapidly changing world, you might get the impression that the cultural left, which (let’s be honest) constitutes the Democratic Party’s base of energy and pressure, isn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat.

And if you’re a guy, what do you do with all of that criticism? You check out. You find a podcast. You listen to some YouTuber explain how protein cured his depression and why you should never trust a woman who owns more than one NPR tote bag.

You exercise your greatest act of middle-finger rebellion: You vote for Trump!

Now, you might say, “Is it really fair to blame the entire Democratic Party for what a few writers say?” No! But politics isn’t about fairness. It’s about vibes, and the vibe right now is that progressive culture has morphed into the HR department from hell. Heck, even Sydney Sweeney in an American Eagle ad was too much for the online pitchfork crowd. What’s next? Canceling golden retrievers?

The problem for the Democratic Party is that once you’re branded a “woke scold,” it’s hard to pivot, no matter what you say.

Look at President Biden. He was called “Genocide Joe” for supporting Israel, yet still got blamed for pro-Palestinian campus protests — proof that stereotypes are sticky, and perception, not policy, drives voter sentiment.

But here’s the irony: Democrats have an opportunity to turn things around — and if their friends weren’t so busy writing gender theory op-eds, they might notice there’s an opening to do just that.

Thanks to issues ranging from tariffs to immigration roundups to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, some of these podcast bros have started mocking Trump. Meanwhile, “South Park” skewered him for threatening lawsuits to intimidate or silence his critics, which is an impressive about-face considering he used to score points by criticizing cancel culture.

“While some of these young men are still drawn to Trump and the Republican Party,” Third Way’s focus groups found, “most are persuadable swing voters who dislike significant aspects of Trump’s actions so far in his second term.”

But it’s gonna take more than President Obama podcasting about “what’s right with young men.” It’s gonna take modern leaders — men and women — who have the guts to stand up to their own tribe and say, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t treat half the population like defective appliances.”

Want their votes? Talk to them like they’re human. Stop acting like masculinity is a war crime. Nominate a presidential candidate who lifts and can go on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Offer some real policies that don’t sound like they were cooked up in a gender studies seminar at Bryn Mawr.

Until then? Don’t be shocked if a whole generation of guys hears one more lecture about toxic masculinity … and decides to vote for the most toxic guy in the room.

This is how Trump wins.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris closed a big door when she announced Wednesday that she would not run for California governor. But she left open a heap of others.

Departing presidents, vice presidents, first ladies and failed presidential candidates have pursued a wide variety of paths in the past. Empowered with name recognition and influence but with no official role to fill, they possess the freedom to choose their next adventure.

Al Gore took up a cause in global warming, while George W. Bush took up painting. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton went on to become secretary of State, while Donald Trump fought off prosecutors, launched new business ventures and plotted his return to power. Barack and Michelle Obama grew their foundation, wrote books and started a production company — and both have done podcasts, too — while remaining prominent voices within the Democratic Party.

Of course, Harris could focus all her energy on another run for president in 2028. But how would she do that, and what would she do to remain politically relevant in the meantime? Which other paths might she choose instead?

“She just finished writing a book. She’s finally decided she’s not running for governor. But to be prescriptive about what role she’s going to play next and how it’s going to look would be premature,” said Harris senior advisor Kirsten Allen.

Experts in power and political leadership expect Harris’ next move to be something in the public eye, given she is relatively young at 60 and no doubt wants her last chapter in the spotlight to be something other than her humbling loss to Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“Even if it isn’t the governorship of California, the idea of wanting something else other than the 2024 election to be the last thing Kamala Harris ever did would be very appealing,” said Gregory H. Winger, an assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Cincinnati who has studied former presidents’ lingering influence.

Winger said his research showed those “most active in trying to be influential” in their post-White House years were those whose time in office ended on a sour note, such as failing to win reelection.

“It’s kind of a frustrated ambition that then leads into higher activity,” Winger said — and Harris has that.

In her announcement about not running for governor, Harris was careful to leave her options open — framing her hopes for the future around ideals such as “fighting for the American people.”

She said she is a “devout public servant” who has long believed the best way to make a difference was to “improve the system from within.” But she also said “our politics, our government, and our institutions have too often failed the American people,” and that “we must be willing to pursue change through new methods and fresh thinking — committed to our same values and principles, but not bound by the same playbook.”

Harris said she looked forward talking to more Americans while helping to elect other Democrats.

Within 24 hours, she had announced a book deal for her forthcoming memoir, “107 Days,” which will chronicle her whirlwind 2024 presidential campaign, and her first interview since the election on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Thursday night.

Nathanael Fast, director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making at the USC Marshall School of Business, said Harris’ talk of “getting back out and listening” is consistent with her wanting to reclaim a prominent national role. That could mean another presidential run, he said, but it could also mean something else — particularly in the short term, where she has work to do recasting people’s perceptions of her.

“If she can create a compelling narrative about who she is, what she’s done, what happened in the last election and where she’s headed next,” Fast said, “she’ll be more likely to succeed.”

Fast said his bet is that she runs for president, but he could also see her going the route of Gore — who, after losing the presidential election, decided to move in a different direction to have worldwide impact by addressing climate change.

“I can imagine someone like Harris taking on artificial intelligence and saying, ‘My whole thing is trying to influence the national conversation around what’s going to happen with AI,’” Fast said.

Artificial intelligence was part of her portfolio as vice president and is a topic Harris cares deeply about, said a source familiar with her thinking who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about her next steps.

Harris also will have to tread carefully as she works to reassert her influence in the Democratic Party, which is still reeling from a second loss to Trump, experts said.

Democrats have struggled to unify the disparate elements of their party and settle on kitchen-table messaging that appeals to voters about the everyday challenges they face, said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College.

After she lost to Trump, a convicted felon targeted with several other criminal investigations, “Harris exemplifies the inability to thread that needle.”

Whatever Harris does to break through, it won’t be easy in today’s saturated media and political marketplace, which is so vastly different from what other former White House occupants faced.

After he declined to run for reelection in 1928, former President Coolidge wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Today, Harris would be more likely to launch a podcast — but whether it will catch on nationally is anyone’s guess.

Winger said Harris does have massive name recognition, and Fast said she has many of the important forms of “capital” for a leader to continue being successful and influential — including financial and social.

Still, “it’s tough,” Winger said. “It’s a very different media ecosystem just because of how crowded and how fractured it has become.”

Kyle Lierman, who worked for more than six years in the Obama White House, is now chief executive of Civic Nation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that houses several education, gender equity and voter initiatives — including When We All Vote, the voter initiative Michelle Obama launched in 2018.

Lierman said he is excited to see what Harris does next, as it’s likely to show her “best side.”

“When you’re at the White House, you are working on a dozen different topics every day, and you are trying to make as big an impact as possible before the clock runs out,” Lierman said. “And when you leave, you have an opportunity to step back, think longer term, and go deeper on a few issues that you’re particularly passionate about. And I think that’s liberating in some ways.”

Former Sen. Laphonza Butler, a longtime friend of Harris’, said the former vice president might draw from the blueprints laid out by her recent predecessors.

“Whether you’re talking about the Clinton Global Initiative or When We All Vote … or the work that’s happening at the Obama Foundation, I think there’s plenty of examples,” Butler said.

Many former presidents have leveraged their experience in foreign affairs — and existing relationships with foreign leaders — to continue holding sway in international relations, particularly when members of their own party return to power. President Clinton, for instance, used President Carter in that way.

Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Harris could be “really effective” in bolstering organizations that work for racial justice and to elect women, but said “that’s not what she was organizing her political career around” before the 2024 election and it may not be the path she chooses now.

Gillespie said she read Harris’ statement as indicating that she was most interested in finding a way to force change outside of government. She said she could see Harris — who is already in California, and whose husband Doug Emhoff is an entertainment lawyer — moving into production and podcasts like the Obamas.

Gillespie said she also could see Harris working closely with Howard University, her alma mater in Washington, D.C., on fundraising or building out a new center of study, as Joe Biden did at the University of Delaware.

“She’s still relatively young, and still could have a good 15 to 20 years of active engagement ahead of her,” Gillespie said, “in whatever form she wants that to take.”

Hunter Biden finally made news outside the MAGA mediasphere for something that’s usually the work of Fox News and other deep state disseminators: He verbally bashed the Democratic Party, CNN’s Jake Tapper, former Obama aides and even Hollywood’s devastatingly handsome ambassador George Clooney.

President Biden’s son, whose very name inspires a Pavlovian response among right-wing conspiracy theorists, appears to have pulled a page from the opposition’s playbook when during two recent interviews he leaned into grievance politics, repeatedly hurled expletives and condemned those who “did not remain loyal” to his father.

Hunter Biden’s first round of interviews since the 2024 election started out tame enough when last week on a new podcast hosted by Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he said that Democrats lost to Donald Trump because they abandoned his father. There was no “grand conspiracy” to hide his father’s health issues, he said. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”

Fair enough. Then it was on to Clooney, one of the first high-profile figures on the left to call for Biden to step aside from his reelection campaign after a disastrous debate performance. Hunter Biden disparagingly referred to the actor as “a brand” and told Harrison, “Do you think in Middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wis., gives a s— what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?”

Then came the knockout punch. In a separate, three-hour-plus interview released Monday with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, he said of the star: “George Clooney is not a f— actor. He is a f—, I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand. … F— him and everybody around him.”

George Clooney was among Kennedy Center honorees welcomed by President Biden at the White House on Dec. 4, 2022.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Hunter Biden also had some words for senior Biden aide Anita Dunn. “The Anita Dunns of the world, who’s made $40 [million], $50 million off the Democratic Party, they’re all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, how to pass more legislation than any president in history, how to have a better midterm election than anyone in history and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever run.” Former Obama aide and political analyst David Axelrod was also on the list. He said Axelrod “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.”

And if the above sentiments were attributed to the current president’s sons, who’ve characterized the Democratic Party as Nazis and referred to those who were protesting immigration sweeps by the patently offensive term “mongoloids”? Meh, it’s just another Monday. But Hunter Biden, like most public-facing Democrats, is held to a different standard. When they go low, we go high. Remember that sage advice that worked for Democrats back in the late aughts and early 2010s but now sounds like advice pulled from a 1950s guide to etiquette? The younger Biden not only deviated from that lefty code but also mirrored his tormentors, then unleashed his ire onto his own party.

Hunter Biden‘s own reckless actions over the years made him grist for all manner of right-wing helmed investigations. Then there are the stupid conspiracies, whether it’s the missing laptop or that mysterious bag of cocaine found in the White House. Hard to keep track, but the younger Biden went there during his recent interview. “I have been clean and sober since June of 2019. I have not touched a drop of alcohol or a drug, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” he told Callaghan. “And why would I bring cocaine into the White House and stick it into a cubby outside of the Situation Room in the West Wing?”

But he also attributed at least one recent alleged conspiracy to those outside the right-wing cabal or, more specifically, to Jake Tapper. The CNN anchor co-wrote “Original Sin,” a provocative book that claimed President Biden’s confidants worked to conceal his declining health from the public.

Hunter Biden argued that it was nonsense and that the “ability to keep a secret in Washington is zero.”
“What sells, Jaime?” he asked Harrison. “What sells is the idea of a conspiracy.” And the public spectacle of flaming your enemy’s enemy.

It has been painfully obvious, ever since the presidential election last November, that the Democratic Party’s brand is in tatters.

This week, a Quinnipiac University poll revealed that congressional Democrats have a minuscule 19% approval rating — an all-time low in the history of that particular poll. Earlier in the week, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll similarly found that the party as a whole has an approval rating of 40% — considerably lower than the Republican Party’s 48% approval rating found by the same poll. Nor can Democrats necessarily rely on any GOP infighting to redound, in seesaw-like fashion, to their own benefit; for all the sturm und drang generated by the “Epstein files” affair, President Trump’s approval ratings have actually increased among Republicans this month.

The issue for Democrats is that their current unpopularity is not a byproduct of the political scandals of the day or the vicissitudes of Trump’s polarizing social media feeds. Rather, the problem for Democrats is structural — and it requires a rethink and a reboot from soup to nuts. As this column argued last November, it is clear that Barack Obama’s winning 2008 political coalition — comprising racial and ethnic minorities, young people and highly educated white voters — has completely withered. “Obamaism” is dead — and Democrats have to reconcile themselves to that demise. At minimum, they should stop taking advice from Obama himself; the 44th president was Kamala Harris’ top 2024 campaign trail surrogate, and we saw how that worked out.

In order for the party to rise up anew, as has often happened throughout American history following a period of dominance from a partisan rival, Democrats are going to have to move beyond their intersectional obsessions and woke grievances that have so greatly alienated large swaths of the American people on issues pertaining to race, gender, immigration, and crime and public safety. And the good news, for conservative Americans who candidly wish the Democratic Party nothing but the worst, is that Democrats seem completely incapable of doing this.

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old recent winner of New York City’s much-discussed Democratic mayoral primary, is a case in point.

The Ugandan-born Shiite Muslim Mamdani is a democratic socialist, but he is better understood as a full-fledged communist. That isn’t hyperbole: One merely needs to consider his proposed policies for New York City and review his broader history of extreme far-left political rhetoric. Mamdani won the primary, and is now seeking the mayor’s office, on a genuinely radical platform: support for citywide “free” bus rides, city-owned grocery stores, a full rent freeze on certain low-income units, outright seizure of private property from arbitrarily “bad” landlords, race-based taxation (an assuredly unconstitutional proposal), a $30 minimum wage and more. A true Marxist, Mamdani has said “abolition of private property” would be an improvement over existing inequality. And he has something of a penchant for quoting Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” too.

But Mamdani’s communism is only part of his overall political persona. He also emphasizes, and trades in, exactly the sort of woke culture warring and intersectional identity politics that have defined the post-Obama Democratic Party. Mamdani is a long-standing harsh critic of Israel who had declined to distance himself from the antisemitic rallying cry “globalize the intifada.” Most recently, he also opposed Trump’s decision to have the U.S. intervene in last month’s Israel-Iran war, condemning it as a “new, dark chapter” that could “plunge the world deeper into chaos.” (In the real world, there were zero American casualties, and the bombing run was followed promptly by a ceasefire.)

There is, to be sure, nothing good down this road for denizens of New York City. If Mamdani wins this fall, expect a massive exodus of people, businesses and capital from the Big Apple — probably to the Sun Belt. But even more relevant: There is nothing good down that road for the national Democratic Party, as a whole. In order to demonstrate that the party has learned anything from its 2024 shellacking and its current abysmal standing, it will have to sound and act less crazy on the tangible issues that affect Americans’ day-to-day lives.

That isn’t happening. If Mamdani’s rise is representative — and it may well be, especially as other far-left firebrands like Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) continue to make outsize noise — then Democrats seem to be moving in the exact opposite direction: full-on Marxism and woke craziness. If the party continues down this path, it will experience nothing but mid- to long-term political pain. But as one of the aforementioned conservatives who wishes the Democratic Party nothing but the worst, I’m not too upset about that.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats remain at odds over policy toward Iran after the U.S. strikes early Sunday.

Progressives demanded unified opposition before President Trump announced U.S. strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program, but party leaders were treading more cautiously.

U.S. leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime U.S. foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatened to destroy Israel. But Trump’s announcement Saturday that the U.S. had struck three nuclear sites could become the Democratic Party’s latest schism, just as it was sharply dividing Trump’s isolationist “Make America Great Again” base from more hawkish conservatives.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, noted that in January, Trump suggested the U.S. could “measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

“Today, against his own words, the president sent bombers into Iran,” Martin said in a statement. “Americans overwhelmingly do not want to go to war. Americans do not want to risk the safety of our troops abroad.”

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said the U.S. entering the war in Iran “does not make America more secure.”

“This bombing was an act of war that risks retaliation by the Iranian regime,” Welch said in a statement.

While progressives in the lead-up to the military action had staked out clear opposition to Trump’s potential intervention, the party leadership played the safer ground of insisting on a role for Congress before any use of force.

Martin’s statement took a similar tack, saying, “Americans do not want a president who bypasses our constitution and pulls us towards war without Congressional approval. Donald Trump needs to bring his case to Congress immediately.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine called Trump’s actions “horrible judgment” and said he’d “push for all senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”

Many prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations had been silent on the Israel-Iran war, even before Trump’s announcement — underscoring how politically tricky the issue can be for the party.

“They are sort of hedging their bets,” said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of State who served under President Obama and is now a strategist on foreign policy. “The beasts of the Democratic Party’s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza that it’s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.”

Progressives

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) had called Trump’s consideration of an attack “a defining moment for our party.” Khanna had introduced legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that called on the Republican president to “terminate” the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran unless “explicitly authorized” by a declaration of war from Congress.

Khanna used Trump’s campaign arguments of putting American interests first when the congressman spoke to Theo Von, a comedian who has been supportive of the president and is popular among Trump supporters, particularly young men.

“That’s going to cost this country a lot of money that should be being spent here at home,” said Khanna, who is said to be among the many Democrats considering seeking the presidential nomination in 2028.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, had pointed to Trump’s stated goal during his inaugural speech of being known as “a peacemaker and a unifier.”

“Supporting Netanyahu’s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake,” Sanders said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sanders reintroduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran, insisted that U.S. military intervention would be unwise and illegal and accused Israel of striking unprovoked. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York signed on to a similar bill from Sanders in 2020, but so far was holding off this time.

Some believed the party should stake out a clear antiwar stance.

“The leaders of the Democratic Party need to step up and loudly oppose war with Iran and demand a vote in Congress,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama aide, on X.

Mainstream Democrats

The staunch support from the Democratic administration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for Israel’s war against Hamas loomed over the party’s White House ticket in 2024, even with the criticism of Israel’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Trump exploited the divisions to make inroads with Arab American voters and Orthodox Jews on his way back to the White House.

Today, the Israel-Iran war is the latest test for a party struggling to repair its coalition before next year’s midterm elections and the quick-to-follow kickoff to the 2028 presidential race. The party will look to bridge the divide between an activist base that is skeptical of foreign interventions and already critical of U.S. support for Israel and more traditional Democrats and independents who make up a sizable, if not always vocal, voting bloc.

In a statement after Israel’s first strikes on Iran, Schumer said Israel has a right to defend itself and “the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said that “the U.S. must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.”

Other Democrats have condemned Israel’s strikes and accused Netanyahu of sabotaging nuclear talks with Iran. They are reminding the public that Trump withdrew in 2018 from a multinational nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions negotiated during the Obama administration.

“Trump created the problem,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted on X.

What voters think

A Pearson Institute/Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from September 2024 found that about half of Democrats said the U.S. was being “too supportive” of Israel and about 4 in 10 said its level of support was “about right.” Democrats were more likely than independents and Republicans to say the Israeli government had “a lot” of responsibility for the continuation of the war between Israel and Hamas.

About 6 in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans said they felt Iran was an adversary with whom the U.S. was in conflict.

Gomez Licon and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Linley Sanders, Will Weissert and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report

Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, resigned from their positions on the Democratic National Committee. This could be great news.

I don’t really know, because the actual reasons remain murky.

“While I am proud to be a Democrat,” Weingarten told DNC Chair Ken Martin in her resignation letter, “I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more and more of our communities.”

Color me skeptical this is the real reason. I doubt Martin’s stated policy is to shrink the Democratic tent or refrain from engaging with “more and more of our communities” — whatever that means. Much of the reporting on the resignations revolves around old-fashioned Democratic disarray and internal power struggles. Weingarten and Saunders had supported Martin’s opponent in the recent election of a new DNC chair. That may be all there is to it, which would be a shame.

That’s because the Democratic Party is a mess. Don’t get me wrong, so is the Republican Party, but for different reasons. The GOP is also in charge, controlling the White House and both branches of Congress. Moreover, for all the problems the Republican Party has, it has the wind at its back and remains more popular than the Democrats. In 2024, it made impressive strides with many core Democratic demographic constituencies, including Black, Latino and young voters.

The GOP has a story to tell voters. You may not like the story. You may think it’s not actually following through on the vision it’s selling, but Republicans know how to articulate what they’re for. Democrats not so much.

Historically, the Democratic Party is the party of government. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.”

The Democratic Party has gotten itself into a mess because it has evolved — or devolved — into a party fairly perceived as more concerned with the interests of the few and less concerned with the welfare and rights of the many. That was the underlying message of that ad the Trump campaign played more than any other (30,000 times!). It showed a clip of Kamala Harris explaining her support for government-funded sex-change surgeries for illegal immigrants. It closed with: “She’s for they/them. He’s for you.” The anti-transgender message was obvious (and broadly popular), but the subtext was more important: Harris is for niche issues that excite activists while Trump is for the meat-and-potatoes concerns of the common American.

Few groups represent the Democrats’ broader problem better than groups such as Weingarten’s AFT (teachers unions typically make up about 1 in 10 of the delegates at Democratic conventions). During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Weingarten consistently put the needs of union members over the general welfare, while insisting she was putting children first. She opposed reopening schools long after it was remotely necessary to operate remotely and successfully badgered Joe Biden to violate his pledge to reopen them quickly.

AFT and other public-sector unions, such as AFSCME, are an ATM for the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party is responsive to donors. For instance, one of the first things President Biden did when he took office was issue an executive order repealing a Trump administration policy that restricted government employees from spending more than 25% of their time doing union business while on the job. He put the number back up to 100%.

There’s a reason FDR disliked the idea of unionizing government employees. The government shouldn’t be captured by special interests that use state power to further their ends over the general welfare. Democrats instinctively understand this when it comes to corporate interests but seem blind to it for members of their own coalition. Biden’s effort to lawlessly cancel student debt wasn’t just terrible policy; it also sent the signal that the party put the interests of the few above the many.

As a conservative, I don’t typically root for the Democratic Party. But I’ve come to realize that our system depends on two healthy, sane parties competing over best policies. When one party goes off the rails, it gives permission for the other party to do likewise. If the departure of Weingarten and Saunders is a sign the party is coming to realize that, that’s good news indeed.

@JonahDispatch

To hear Republicans tell it, California is a failed state and Donald Trump won the presidency in a landslide that gives him a mandate to do as he pleases. No surprise there.

But more and more, Democrats are echoing those talking points. Ever since Kamala Harris lost the election, the Democratic Party has been on a nationwide self-flagellation tour. One after another, its leaders have stuck their heads deep into their navels, hoping to find out why so many Americans — especially young people, Black voters and Latinos — shunned the former vice president.

Even in California, a reliably blue state, the soul-searching has been extreme, as seen at last weekend’s state Democratic Party convention, where a parade of speakers — including Harris’ 2024 running mate, Tim Walz — wailed and moaned and did the woe-is-us-thing.

Is it long-overdue introspection, or just annoying self-pity? Our columnists Anita Chabria and Mark Z. Barabak hash it out.

Chabria: Mark, you were at the convention in Anaheim. Thoughts?

Barabak: I’ll start by noting this is the first convention I’ve attended — and I’ve been to dozens — rated “R” for adult language. Apparently, Democrats think by dropping a lot of f-bombs they can demonstrate to voters their authenticity and passion. But it seemed kind of stagy and, after a while, grew tiresome.

I’ve covered Nancy Pelosi for more than three decades and never once heard her utter a curse word, in public or private. I don’t recall Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “I have a [expletive deleted] dream.” Both were pretty darned effective leaders.

Democrats have a lot of work to do. But cursing a blue streak isn’t going to win them back the White House or control of Congress.

Chabria: As someone known to routinely curse in polite society, I’m not one to judge an expletive. But that cussing and fussing brings up a larger point: Democrats are desperate to prove how serious and passionate they are about fixing themselves. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the Democratic brand “toxic.” Walz told his fellow Dems: “We’re in this mess because some of it’s our own doing.”

It seems like across the country, the one thing Democrats can agree on is that they are lame. Or at least, they see themselves as lame. I’m not sure the average person finds Democratic ideals such as equality or due process quite so off-putting, especially as Trump and his MAGA brigade move forward on the many campaign promises — deportations, rollbacks of civil rights, stripping the names of civil rights icons off ships — that at least some voters believed were more talk than substance.

I always tell my kids to be their own hero, and I’m starting to think the Democrats need to hear that. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Move on. Do you think all this self-reproach is useful, Mark? Does Harris’ loss really mean the party is bereft of value or values?

Barabak: I think self-reflection is good for the party, to a point. Democrats suffered a soul-crushing loss in November — at the presidential level and in the Senate, where the GOP seized control — and they did so in part because many of their traditional voters stayed home. It would be political malpractice not to figure out why.

That said, there is a tendency to go overboard and over-interpret the long-term significance of any one election.

This is not the end of the Democratic Party. It’s not even the first time one of the two major parties has been cast into the political wilderness.

Democrats went through similar soul-searching after presidential losses in 1984 and 1988. In 1991, a book was published explaining how Democrats were again destined to lose the White House and suggesting they would do so for the foreseeable future. In November 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president. Four years later, he romped to reelection.

In 2013, after two straight losing presidential campaigns, Republicans commissioned a political autopsy that, among other recommendations, urged the party to increase its outreach to gay and Latino voters. In 2016, Donald Trump — not exactly a model of inclusion — was elected.

Here, by the way, is how The Times wrote up that postmortem: “A smug, uncaring, ideologically rigid national Republican Party is turning off the majority of American voters, with stale policies that have changed little in 30 years and an image that alienates minorities and the young, according to an internal GOP study.”

Sound familar?

So, sure, look inward. But spare us the existential freakout.

Chabria: I would also argue that this moment is about more than the next election. I do think there are questions about if democracy will make it that long, and if so, if the next round at the polls will be a free and fair one.

I know the price of everything continues to rise, and conventional wisdom is that it’s all about the economy. But Democrats seem stuck in election politics as usual. These however, are unusual times that call for something more. There are a lot of folks who don’t like to see their neighbors, family or friends rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in masks; a lot of people who don’t want to see Medicaid cut for millions, with Medicare likely to be on the chopping block next; a lot of people who are afraid our courts won’t hold the line until the midterms.

They want to know Democrats are fighting to protect these things, not fighting each other. I agree with you that any loss should be followed by introspection. But also, there’s a hunger for leadership in opposition to this administration, and the Democrats are losing an opportunity to be those leaders with their endless self-immolation.

Did Harris really lose that bad? Did Trump really receive a mandate to end America as we know it?

Barabak: No, and no.

I mean, a loss is a loss. Trump swept all seven battleground states and the election result was beyond dispute unlike, say, 2000.

But Trump’s margin over Harris in the popular vote was just 1.5% — which is far from landslide territory — and he didn’t even win a majority of support, falling just shy of 50%.

As for a supposed mandate, the most pithy and perceptive post-election analysis I read came from the American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin, who noted Trump’s victory marked the third presidential campaign in a row in which the incumbent party lost — something not seen since the 19th century.

Challengers “win elections because their opponents were unpopular,” Levin wrote, “and then — imagining the public has endorsed their party activists’ agenda — they use the power of their office to make themselves unpopular.”

It’s a long way to 2026, and an even longer way to 2028.

But Levin is sure looking smart.

Chabria: I know Kamala-bashing is popular right now, but I’d argue that Harris wasn’t resoundingly unpopular — just unpopular enough, with some.

Harris had 107 days to campaign. Many candidates spend years running for the White House, and much longer if you count the coy “maybe” period. She was unknown to most Americans, faced double discrimination from race and gender, and (to be fair) has never been considered wildly charismatic. So to nearly split the popular vote with all that baggage is notable.

But maybe Elon Musk said it best. As part of his messy breakup with Trump, the billionaire tweeted, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”

Sometimes there’s truth in anger. Musk’s money influenced this election, and probably tipped it to Trump in at least one battleground state. Any postmortem needs to examine not just the message, but also the medium. Is it what Democrats are saying that isn’t resonating, or is it that right-wing oligarchs are dominating communication?

Barabak:

Chabria: Mark?

Barabak: Sorry.

I was so caught up in the spectacle of the world’s richest man going all neener-neener with the world’s most powerful man I lost track of where we were.

With all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, I think Democrats need first off to figure out a message to carry them through the 2026 midterms. They were quite successful in 2018 pushing back on GOP efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, if you prefer. It’s not hard to see them resurrecting that playbook if Republicans take a meat-ax to Medicare and millions of Americans lose their healthcare coverage.

Then, come 2028, they’ll pick a presidential nominee and have their messenger, who can then focus on the medium — TV, radio, podcasts, TikTok, Bluesky or whatever else is in political fashion at the moment.

Now, excuse me while I return my sights to the sandbox.

JOE Biden is facing fresh scrutiny over his health while in office amid his “aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis.

The former president, 82, claimed to have had cancer in a speech he gave three years ago – which sparked fears for his health at the time.

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Biden’s comments came during a speech about “cancer-causing” emissions from oil refineries near his childhood home in Delaware.

He said: “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer and why for the longest time Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”

Biden’s use of the present tense led to speculations that the president was suffering from cancer.

But these were dismissed after it was suggested that the comments were a reference to “non-melanoma skin cancers”.

Before assuming the presidency, Biden had a number of “localized, non-melanoma skin cancers” removed by surgery.

In November 2021, Biden had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion.

And in February 2023, he had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.

Non-melanoma skin cancer typically develops in the areas of the body most exposed to the sun such as the face, ears, hands, shoulders, upper chest, and back.

But Biden is now facing fresh scrutiny over his cancer comments following the announcement of his cancer diagnosis on Sunday.

This comes as Donald Trump took a swipe at his predecessor and said he was “surprised” the public wasn’t told long ago about Biden’s cancer.

The US President cast doubt on the timeline of Biden’s diagnosis on Monday as he said it usually takes a “long time” to reach such an aggressive stage of cancer.

Trump was backed up by a leading oncologist who claimed that the former president likely had cancer when he took office in 2021.

Dr Zeke Emanuel said: “He had it while he was President.

“He probably had it at the start of his presidency, in 2021.”

Biden announced his cancer diagnosis in an official statement from his personal office on Sunday.

The statement said that he was seen by doctors last week after suffering urinary symptoms, with a prostate nodule then being found.

He was then diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

The statement read: “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.

“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.

“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

A Gleason score of 9 means the cancerous cells “look very abnormal” and that the disease is “likely to grow quickly”, according to Cancer Research UK.

Biden served as US president from 2021 to 2025, with his term ending on January 20 when Donald Trump took office.

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