In 2004, life as a Democrat was fairly bleak.
The social gathering misplaced a presidential election to George W. Bush for a second time. Including insult to damage, Democratic nominee John Kerry misplaced the favored vote. The social gathering was seemingly dropping floor, after having received the favored vote in 2000 and dropping the Electoral Faculty thanks solely to an exceedingly shut (and contested) loss in Florida. It was a unique world again then, however Democrats sensed that voters resoundingly had rejected what they needed to provide — even whereas operating towards a Republican candidate broadly thought of susceptible.
In 2024, life as a Democrat is fairly bleak in lots of the similar methods it was twenty years in the past. Ballots are nonetheless being counted after the presidential election, however the Democratic presidential nominee is on monitor to lose the favored vote for the primary time in 20 years.
That widespread vote loss has compelled a broader reckoning: Profitable the favored vote “acted as a form of salve: Sure, the Electoral Faculty might have delivered Bush and Trump the presidency, however on some stage, their administrations have been illegitimate, unsanctioned by the favored will,” stated Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt College centered on media, conservatism, and the presidency.
And not using a “however the widespread vote” fallback, Democrats are confronting a harsh actuality. “For the primary time since 2004, this election felt like an embrace of conservatism, albeit a a lot completely different form of conservatism than the one related to the 2004 winner,” stated Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the College of Virginia Heart for Politics.
Now, as in 2004, Democrats are participating in what will be generously considered as introspection (or, much less generously, a “round firing squad”) to chart a brand new course again to energy and assess what went so very mistaken this time round. The blame for that’s up for debate: It could have been the financial system, Democrats’ embrace of “wokeness,” President Joe Biden’s determination to run for a second time period, the truth that many Individuals truly favored what Trump was promoting, or any variety of different elements.
Although it might take months for what particularly went mistaken to turn out to be clearer, the 2004 election and its aftermath would possibly present some perception into how Democrats can transfer ahead.
In spite of everything, 4 years after the Bush-Kerry debacle, Democrats received the 2008 election in a landslide, with Barack Obama beating John McCain by practically 10 million votes and getting into the White Home with large congressional majorities at his again.
What Democrats at the moment can be taught from the social gathering’s loss in 2004
There are apparent variations between 2004 and 2024. The aughts election was dominated by 9/11 and the International Struggle on Terror that adopted. This yr, these matters barely registered, whereas Trump and Biden’s respective information, the financial system, and the tradition wars took heart stage. Additional, Kerry’s marketing campaign began with profitable a really aggressive main, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris took over after Biden stepped apart and gave her his endorsement.
However the vibes amongst Democrats are comparable, and what they do subsequent might decide whether or not they see a revival within the 2026 midterms and the elections that comply with.
Total, Democrats took three classes from 2004. Whether or not one believes these classes apply to 2024 relies upon, largely, on what one believes went mistaken for Harris in her loss to Trump. However, given Democrats’ profitable restoration from 2004, it’s a historical past lesson price taking.
1) They pursued a 50-state technique
Following the 2004 loss, a preferred meme rocketed across the (nonetheless considerably nascent) web: a map that depicted the Democratic “United States of Canada” as present alongside the coasts and a Republican “Jesusland” encompassing the overwhelming majority of land within the US.
If that appears reductive and problematic on a number of fronts, you’re not mistaken, however the map, aforementioned issues apart, served partly as shorthand for declaring Democrats’ turnout downside. Sure, Kerry had turned out 9 million extra votes than Al Gore had 4 years earlier than, however he nonetheless fell nearly 3 million wanting Bush.
That hole revealed a vulnerability for Democrats: their lack of ability to mobilize a broad coalition in swing states and past that might translate into an Electoral Faculty victory. Kerry couldn’t summon the form of voter enthusiasm essential to match Bush’s sturdy efficiency in rural areas and outer suburbs.
To goose turnout, Democrats appeared to Howard Dean, who ran a populist main marketing campaign however misplaced to Kerry.
Elected as chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee in 2005, Dean grew to become a proponent of a “50-state technique.” The concept behind this technique was that Democrats have to attempt to compete in each state, maximizing turnout in Democratic areas whereas reducing into Republican margins the place attainable.
This yr, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, like Dean, believes a part of the answer may very well be the return of the 50-state technique. They’re not alone: “We can’t run in simply the few states that we’d like,” stated Claire Potter, a professor emerita of historical past on the New Faculty. “The Democrats have, in some methods, actually backed off that technique, and I feel they’re mistaken to have executed so.”
The Harris marketing campaign — for very comprehensible causes — didn’t make the most of Dean’s methodology. With just a few months to marketing campaign, Harris centered on swing states and choose demographic teams. She largely didn’t go to traditionally “protected” Democratic states. Whereas it’s not clear that she might have stanched the bleeding in these locations, there have been important rightward shifts from New York Metropolis to Southern California.
And it’s not clear how effectively the 50-states idea has aged. In spite of everything, Hillary Clinton ran up the favored vote complete after profitable large in solidly blue states, however she acquired to function president for precisely zero days.
That technique was later credited with serving to Democrats make positive factors within the 2006 midterms and with serving to to place Obama within the White Home in 2008.
And after 2024, the place Democrats misplaced floor in nearly each county within the US, a plan to spice up the social gathering’s recognition nationally just isn’t one it may possibly afford to disregard.
2) Democrats reevaluated their messaging
In 2004, Democrats didn’t have a response to the rise of the right-wing weblog Drudge Report and Fox Information’s consolidation round Republicans. Kerry was typically forged as an elitist with an costly haircut, and right-wing commentators efficiently turned one in all his strengths as a candidate — his army service in Vietnam — right into a legal responsibility by means of viral assault advertisements.
“There may be this sort of disingenuous assault on Kerry because the Harvard boy, as anyone who’s faking having actually fought in Vietnam,” Potter stated. “Bush is ready to play the cardboard of being an outsider, despite the fact that he’s an incumbent, despite the fact that he went to Yale, despite the fact that his father was president.”
In response, Democrats sought to reevaluate their general messaging technique. The influential e book Don’t Consider an Elephant! by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff served as a guidebook for reframing debates in their very own phrases and for explaining their coverage positions by evoking values of empathy, equity, and neighborhood with out adopting the language of conservatives. In addition they embraced Dean — dubbed by the Washington Publish in 2005 as an “outsider rebel” who wore beat-up footwear and flew coach, spending most of his time outdoors of DC.
In 2024, Democrats have been once more outflanked by a new Republican media machine — this time, together with the likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to ship their message. Harris, for her half, declined to seem on Rogan’s podcast, reportedly for worry of how it will be perceived inside the social gathering.
3) Democrats sought to turn out to be a celebration of concepts
Kerry marketing campaign adviser Kenneth Baer stated that, in 2024, Democrats repeated their mistake in 2004 of defining themselves as being the alternative of Republicans.
”Sensible folks appear to have come round to the thought you can’t simply say Trump’s horrible,” Baer stated, arguing that Democrats had the identical situation in 2004, when Kerry spent a lot of his time on the marketing campaign path criticizing Bush as an alternative of defining affirmative causes to vote for Democrats. That referred to as for Democrats to “rethink all our insurance policies and our approaches,” Baer stated.
Baer went on to discovered the journal Democracy: A Journal of Concepts as a platform for these concepts. That’s the place Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), then a Harvard Regulation Faculty professor, revealed a 2007 manifesto about how monetary merchandise like mortgages and bank cards must be regulated by the federal government. That concept would later give rise to the Client Monetary Safety Bureau.
At the moment, some Democrats say the social gathering nonetheless must higher join with the working class, however Baer famous that there’s disagreement about what which means and whether or not that ought to contain an financial or cultural method.
The bounds of political technique
Democrats would very very like a silver-bullet technique that ensures them a post-2004-esque restoration. However the reality is, political technique and planning can solely go up to now. And which may be one of many greatest classes from twenty years in the past.
The social gathering’s return to energy in 2008 was principally pushed by two elements: Obama was a generationally politically gifted politician. George W. Bush was a generationally horrible president whose second time period featured a bungled and lethal response to Hurricane Katrina; an much more disastrous and lethal dealing with of the Iraq Struggle (the false pretenses of which got here totally to mild throughout Bush’s second time period); and the 2008 monetary disaster and ensuing financial meltdown.
“The situations that might collapse Bush’s assist in his second time period have been already in place when he received reelection,” Hemmer, the political historian, stated.
So how Democrats do in 2026, 2028, and past will doubtless have lots to do with Trump’s efficiency throughout his second time period.
At the moment, preliminary exit polls recommend Trump is unpopular, his proposed tariffs may very well be disastrous for the financial system, Democrats might mobilize towards his insurance policies as they did in his first time period, and he might solely have a really slender Home majority to work with, doubtlessly hampering his agenda.
If such a collapse occurs, nonetheless, Democrats additionally must be ready to grab on it.