The State of the Democratic Party

I am going to touch on a few different topics today as there is a lot happening. First, some good news for Democrats. Last night, Catelin Drey, a Democrat, defeated Republican Christopher Prosch in a special election for a seat in the Iowa State Senate. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump won this district by 11 points last November. Drey won by 10 points, making this a 21-point shift. This follows a similar special election victory in January when Democrat Mike Zimmer won another state Senate seat that Trump had carried by 21 points. Moreover, Drey's victory broke the Republican supermajority in the Senate. As a result, Republicans will no longer be able to confirm Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds' nominees without Democratic support.  That will allow Democrats to block her most extreme nominees.

The two Iowa victories highlight something that I have thought was obvious for some time. The Democratic brand is in freefall, with public support for the Democratic Party at near-historic lows. Individual Democrats, however, remain popular, especially when compared to Republicans. If I had to point a finger at who is responsible for the Democratic Party's bad name, I would blame the Democratic leadership, specifically Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Voters appear to want someone who will fight for them. Schumer and Jeffries, in contrast, seem to be doing nothing but cowering under their desks. When they do try to put up a little fight, they end up looking foolish because it is completely against their nature. They are, of course, aided by many Democratic Senators and Representatives who continue to support them and, often, appear to agree with their docile stances.

After the November election, there was a wave of commentators asking how Democrats could win back young male voters and the working class. Then New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani came along and provided a demonstration of exactly how it could be done. Mainstream Democrats reacted as if they were vampires exposed to garlic. Neither Schumer, Jeffries, New York's other Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, nor New York Governor Kathy Hochul have endorsed Mamdani. This is not atypical of centrist Democrats who would rather lose than admit that anyone to the left of them was correct. One of the best representatives of centrist Democrats these days is Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo was soundly defeated by Mamdani in the Democratic primary. But, like most centrists, Cuomo could not find it within himself to support a progressive. Rather, he decided to risk splitting the Democratic vote by running in the general election as an independent. I've always suspected that centrist Democrats would rather unite with Trump and his MAGA supporters than with progressive Democrats. Cuomo has made this explicit. As Politico reports, Cuomo is banking on Trump's support. Schumer, Jeffries, and the others, by not endorsing Mamdani, are giving the impression that they are willing to see a MAGA-aligned centrist win rather than a progressive Democrat. That's quite a message to send to other Democrats.

This brings me to my primary speculation about the decline in support for Democrats. The problem for Democrats is not support for transgender rights, support for the rights of migrants, or economic policies that have been blamed for inflation. Rather, Democrats — at least the centrists — are simply not sufficiently differentiating themselves from Republicans. If voters want candidates who oppose transgender rights, immigration, and taxing the wealthy, they can vote for Republicans. Progressive Democrats want nothing to do with Democrats holding such positions. That leaves mainstream Democrats with very little base of support as they lose voters to both the right and the left. What Mamdani showed is that running in favor of things, rather than against everything, is popular. Drey, in Iowa, offered a similar lesson. Her platform was quite short. She supported affordable childcare, bodily autonomy (primarily meaning abortion rights but could include gender-affirming care), equitable access to healthcare, fully funded public education, and tax credits for small businesses. That may not be the most progressive platform in the world, but when is the last time you heard of a centrist Democrat running in favor of fully funded public education?

Another example of mainstream Democrats completely failing to understand the importance of the moment comes from the news that David Shor's Blue Rose Research, a firm that is very popular with establishment Democrats, has issued a memo advising Democrats not to discuss Trump's "rising authoritarianism" because the topic is a distraction from other issues. Hence, we have arrived at a situation in which mainstream Democrats don't want to talk about anything because they think everything is a distraction. When D.C. is being patrolled by armed National Guardsmen, masked, unidentified men are stuffing people into unmarked cars, and Trump is talking daily about becoming a dictator, talking about it certainly doesn't seem like a distraction to me. Yesterday, for the second day in a row, Trump discussed becoming a dictator (and he did it twice yesterday). Someday, Trump will announce that he has become the country's first dictator. The New York Times will run a headline along the lines of "Trump takes Bold Step while Democratic Leaders Criticize the Move as a Distraction".

In D.C. news, the Washington Post ran an article today about the National Guard being used to pick up trash and provide groundskeeping services. Many may be unaware of how much property in D.C. is federally owned. This is especially true of small parks throughout the District. Even before the U.S. DOGE Service-initiated cuts, the federal government was not particularly good at maintaining that property. According to the Post, the National Park Service used to have a staff of 200 assigned to maintain parks and gardens in the District. After the DOGE cuts, the service was left with just 20. There are thousands of acres to maintain, and 20 is clearly not enough. Almost daily, I spend time in Rock Creek Park, probably the largest NPS-controlled property in Washington. I have seen a significant drop in maintenance, with one picnic area so overgrown that it is probably unusable at this point. Therefore, federal assistance is welcome, but the National Guard is not the solution. The National Guard should be training for its missions, not picking up trash and spreading mulch. What will happen when the National Guard leaves D.C.? This is just another, small but visible, example of Trump's inability to govern.

Yesterday I wrote about the inability of Fox News television judge Jeanine Pirro, the current U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to secure an indictment of a woman who was alleged to have interfered with police after an unheard-of three tries before grand juries. Today there is news that a grand jury refused to indict an even higher-profile individual. Prosecutors were attempting to indict Sean Dunn, the infamous "sandwich guy" who was videoed throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer, on a felony charge. Trump has ordered Pirro to seek the most serious charges possible, resulting in several cases being overcharged. Grand juries have simply not been going along with it. Prosecutors may try again for a felony indictment, or they just might resort to misdemeanor charges. If Pirro ever manages to indict these individuals, they will be highly incentivized to seek jury trials. If grand juries — before whom defendants are not allowed to be represented by an attorney or to present evidence — are reacting this way, the defendants will have a field day before a petit jury.