By Nia-Malika Henderson / Bloomberg Opinion
Republicans routed Democrats in the 2024 election. The coming year offers a chance for the defeated party to figure out if the last cycle was a realignment or an electoral anomaly.
There has been lots of soul-searching and finger-pointing in recent weeks; that will continue for months as Democrats sort through the results and test theories about how to win in this environment.
We can get a sense of where the party is moving by watching five key leadership contests in 2025:
1. What’s next for Eric Adams? The New York City mayor is up for reelection next year, after being indicted on bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses. He has denied the allegations and said that he is being targeted because he has stood his ground and fought for New Yorkers.
The retired police captain and former registered Republican won the job promising to rein in crime and is now the most prominent Democratic mayor offering cooperation with Trump on his mass deportation efforts. He has also suggested he might leave the Democratic Party.
Adams’ overtures to Trump aren’t entirely independent from his legal troubles; cozying up to Trump could lead to a pardon. Adams, a conservative Democrat with a Trumpian swagger, will face challenges from progressive Democrats who are now running in a city that is shifting to the right over immigration and crime. An Adams win, combined with a Trump pardon, could further demoralize the left and elevate Adams as an ideological disrupter for both parties, but especially Democrats. Adams’ cooperation with Trump on immigration could put pressure on other moderate Democrats in big cities to do the same.
2. Who will lead the Democratic National Committee? The job is mostly about fundraising, but in this environment it will also be about branding and messaging as Democrats plot their way back to power. An autopsy might be on the agenda as well. (Short autopsy: Biden shouldn’t have run. You’re welcome.)
But the type of Democrats who will decide who will lead their party already think they know why they lost in 2024; progressive ideas cost them the election. This is inaccurate; Harris ran a centrist campaign with former Rep. Liz Cheney as her Republican sidekick. Another theory is that backing a female candidate of color cost the party; and it isn’t a coincidence that white men dominate the field of candidates vying to run the DNC.
Among those candidates are Former Maryland governor and presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Democratic Party head Ken Martin, leader of the Wisconsin Democrats Ben Wikler and New York state Sen. James Skoufis. There’s also Nate Snyder, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official who is Latino and Jewish. He’s likely to be the candidate that sounds most like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The field could grow beyond the declared candidates in the coming weeks. The winner, based on who gets the most votes among 448 active DNC members, will tell us what the party thinks it needs to do to win.
3. What will Kamala Harris do? Harris did something remarkable in turning around a sinking ship in just four months. Unfortunately, Biden’s campaign had taken on so much for water over almost two years that there was little she could do, even with $1.5 billion. My Bloomberg colleague Erika Smith argued that she should run for governor of California in 2026 and not the White House in 2028. Others say she should be done with politics.
Her first major interview and maybe a book will reveal her thoughts about the campaign beyond what she’s already said in post-election remarks. In so many ways, Harris is a symbol and her failed campaign has become a vehicle to express long-simmering tensions among the Democrats. Was her candidacy an example of the failure of progressive policies? Was it too centrist? Related to those questions is the role of Black and Brown candidates; and female candidates. Should the next Democratic standard-bearer be a white man, given Harris’ and Hillary Clinton’s failure to beat Trump? All of these questions will follow Harris’ political career and the party as Democrats plot a post-Trump future.
4. Who will be the next governor of Virginia? Typically, the off-year race for the governor’s mansion is seen as a bellwether race for the party out of power in the White House. (Current Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, won in 2021.) Centrist Democrat Abigail Spanberger is the candidate to watch. Long a critic of her party’s progressive wing, the former swing-district congresswoman and CIA officer will be a test case for Democrats. Can they figure out more effective messaging on issues like immigration and the economy in the Trump era? The Old Dominion state, with its suburbs and rural areas, could provide Democrats with a workable blueprint for 2026 as they try to recapture the House; and also for 2028 when Trump will no longer be on the ballot.
5. Who will lead the opposition? When Trump first took office in 2017, Democrats were energized by opposing him at every turn. They flooded the streets with protests and they channeled that fury into recapturing the House and eventually defeating Trump in 2020. Quite simply, the resistance actually worked; at least in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Yet, with his second term, some Democrats are taking a different approach and seem to doubt the effectiveness of the resistance. Democrats are praising his cabinet picks, they are vowing to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to slash the federal budget by $2 trillion and some have floated pardoning Trump. All are eyeing the leadership void in the Democratic party and looking to fill it themselves with a mix of centrist and progressive ideas.
Perhaps most emblematic of the tightrope is Colorado Gov. Jared Polis who applauded Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department, but also launched a group with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to protect against autocracy. In the House, there was a slight generational shift at the top of committees, yet New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the party’s brightest star, was denied a leadership role.
What is certain is that the Trump era will be full of chaos (see the spending bill debacle). What is less certain is how and if the Democrats can effectively counter him as they sort through their own identity crises.
Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.
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