The Winston Group’s David Winston in today’s Roll Call writes that Democrats should consider a different playbook moving forward.
Many Democrats, especially those in the progressive wing, believe they lost because they didn’t go far left enough.
They couldn’t be more wrong, and that thinking has put the Democratic Party in third place — behind independents — in terms of nationwide party ID, going from 37 percent in the 2020 exit polls to 31 percent in the 2024 exit polls. The last time a major party came in behind independents was Republicans during the the Watergate era some 50 years ago.
The existential problem Republicans had to overcome then wasn’t the Democratic Party but whether they could persuade voters that their value proposition to the country still had merit and warranted another chance — without Richard Nixon, of course.
Today, rather than undertaking some serious introspection as to what voters want and whether Democratic ideology still has value for the electorate, Democrats have turned to an old playbook: the Resistance.
Read the full piece here.
