What’s next for Democrats?
That’s the question thousands of Democrats, including lawmakers, strategists, pollsters, creators, organizers, collaborators and 2028 presidential candidates, are trying to answer at a three-day rally in Denver, following a landslide victory in the 2026 midterm elections.
But the answer remains vague.
“We need to provide immediate, bold relief during this affordability crisis,” Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico said at the “What’s Next” conference Thursday.
“Now we will have a collective responsibility to really get to work, to fight for an affordable America, to work hard to bring down the high cost of groceries, the high cost of gasoline, the high cost of housing,” New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries said Friday.
The consensus is that Democrats need to act quickly when they become the majority in January. But the how is much more complicated.
The question arises whether lawmakers should focus more on accountability and conducting investigations into the administration or focus on advancing legislation to make life more affordable for Americans.
Rob Sand, Iowa’s governor-elect, told reporters Thursday that he thinks the focus should be on providing tangible economic aid.
“Every time I read, right now, other investigations into things that have already been reported in the media, I think, ‘Why do we need to investigate this? This has already been reported.’ Why don’t you do something that’s actually productive or improves people’s lives,” Sand said.
Jamie Raskin, the Maryland congressman expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters he believes lawmakers can do both.
Without forgetting that a fight is brewing for the leadership of the parties in the Senate. Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen now challenges longtime party leader Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader.
“I’m not voting for Senator Schumer,” Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin told reporters Friday.
Still, the mood at the Democrats’ de facto victory party — which had been planned months in advance by a new group called Majority Democrats — was mostly celebratory. Attendees rejoiced over massive victories in longtime Republican strongholds, which gave the party significant majorities in both houses of Congress and expanded Democratic control of governors and state legislatures across the country.
A six-piece jazz band welcomed participants to a large outdoor plaza Thursday afternoon. Participants hugged and congratulated each other. The square was filled with smiling Democrats, some wearing “Talarico for Texas” shirts and “Jamie Ager for Congress” pins, others wearing “pay your taxes” hats.
Most of the participants were young. Many organizers and strategists are people who joined Democratic groups or campaigns in or after 2016, when Donald Trump was first elected.
Several attendees described the event as a class reunion.
The crowd was filled with hugs, laughter and selfies from delighted organizers who have spent the last decade working toward a Democratic victory.
“I think it’s important to debrief elections, win or lose. I think we’ve seen the negative ramifications of not properly debriefing an election after 2024,” said Danielle Butterfield, executive director of Priorities USA, a Democratic-aligned Super Pac.
By 4 p.m. Friday, the booze was flowing and what seemed like a never-ending stream of happy hours began.
Yet behind this enthusiasm was a fear that Democrats would fail to seize the opportunity.
“We can’t screw this up,” one Democratic strategist said.
Reminders of latent tensions within the party were present throughout the weekend. Left-wing protesters interrupted Jeffries several times during his Friday event on the main stage. They called him a traitor, accused him of not opposing the Trump administration enough and ignoring young Democratic voters.
Outside the event venue, a small group of protesters called on Democrats to reject Schumer and elect new leaders. Another larger group of protesters expressed support for Palestine and denounced billionaires.
Progressive Democrats, whose presence on the main stage was rare at the “What’s Next” conference, expressed deep frustrations with establishment Democrats.
Throughout the event, some Democrats alluded to these frustrations.
Anderson Clayton, 28, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, questioned why Democrats had not invested in the South, particularly in black districts where voters voted for Democrats.
“We say black voters are the base of our party. Then I ask why don’t we invest in a region of the country that on Tuesday night just proved everyone wrong about what was possible,” Clayton said Thursday.
Aftab Pureval, the mayor of Cincinnati, warned Democrats not to view recent victories as a sign of the Democratic Party’s popularity.
“Victory has the unfortunate tendency to cloud our judgment. It turns our gaze inward, tempting us to believe that we, here in this room, have saved democracy. That the American people have finally accepted our way of thinking. But the truth is, they have not accepted our vision,” Pureval said.
“Last week they gave us one more chance to join them.”
But when asked about the potential split in Democratic factions, many participants dismissed concerns, believing Democrats would rise to the occasion.
“The progressive-moderate binary at this moment in our politics is insufficient to understand the moment we find ourselves in,” Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left, a progressive grassroots organization, told the Guardian.
“Among the attendees, there is a pretty dynamic mix and while this conference qualifies as a moderate conference, when you look more specifically at both the message from the main stage and the way many of the leaders here are speaking, there is something different going on,” Radjy said.
“There’s more talk about what it means to embrace the politics of addition, what it really means to make sure that Democrats get important results.”
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