The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, has largely avoided a full public reckoning over the mistakes that helped return President Donald Trump to the White House, leaving strategists, governors, activists, and candidates to wage that debate in primaries and statehouses across the country.

Matt Klink, a California-based political strategist, said the party’s reluctance to fully examine its 2024 defeat has only prolonged the internal debate.

“The Democratic National Committee released its long-delayed review in May 2026, but even sympathetic observers described the exercise as incomplete and fundamentally flawed,” Klink told the Washington Examiner.

Ashleigh Ewald, who served as a Generation Z content creator for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s Georgia campaign in 2024, said Democrats are still struggling with the same questions that emerged after Biden stepped aside.

“I do not believe the party has fully answered that question yet,” she told the Washington Examiner. “Democrats are still trying to balance appealing to moderates and swing voters while also responding to a progressive base that wants bigger changes. The conversation happening within the party today is less about whether Democrats should change and more about what direction that change should take.”

Others believe dissatisfaction with Democratic leadership has intensified.

“Some of it may be ideological, but it’s broader than that,” Andrew Koneschusky, founder of Beltway Advisors and former press secretary to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), told the Washington Examiner. “Democrats are tired of losing, and they see the establishment as responsible for it. The people who led the party into the wilderness aren’t the ones who are going to lead it out.”

That frustration has become increasingly visible over the past year as insurgent candidates have defeated establishment-backed rivals and a younger generation of Democrats has emerged as possible national leaders.

“There’s also a thirst for a new generation of leadership,” Koneschusky said, pointing to figures such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who are already being floated as possible 2028 contenders.

Affordability eclipses democracy

While Democrats continue debating ideology, strategists across the political spectrum seem to agree the party misread what mattered most to voters in 2024.

“In 2024, Democrats underestimated how angry voters were about inflation and failed to recognize affordability as the single biggest issue motivating them,” Koneschusky said. “Democrats were mostly talking about democracy; voters were waking up every day worrying about the rising cost of milk, eggs, and other basic necessities.”

Klink argued Democrats also paid a political price for dismissing concerns many voters viewed as legitimate.

“The party’s most important lesson should be that voters cannot be told their concerns are illegitimate,” he said. “Concerns about inflation, the border, boys in girls’ sports, public safety, and presidential fitness were not Republican inventions.”

Emily Suttle-Braun, CEO of political and strategic consulting firm Doodle Mom Strategies, said Democrats suffered from both a messaging problem and a credibility problem.

“We didn’t have a crisp economic message, and the message voters did hear felt like it was written by committee for an audience that doesn’t exist,” she told the Washington Examiner. “Voters weren’t confused about what we stood for. They just didn’t believe we were talking to them.”

She argued Republicans succeeded by making an emotional case rather than simply a policy one.

“They’re winning because they show up sounding certain, aggrieved on their behalf, and unbothered by whether any of it is true,” she said. “Democrats keep responding with a fact sheet to what is fundamentally an emotional pitch.”

A fight over who leads the party

Although headlines have focused on the rise of socialist candidates following Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York City, several strategists argue the larger conflict is not between moderates and progressives but between the party establishment and voters demanding new leadership.

“You see some policy differences in Democratic primaries, especially around Israel and Gaza,” Koneschusky said. “But there’s little daylight among Democrats on most domestic issues.”

“The bigger fight is over who gets to lead the party forward — fresh faces or establishment picks.”

Ewald agreed that the debate is fundamentally about representation rather than policy.

“The policy discussions are important, but they reflect a larger conversation about who Democrats are trying to reach,” she said. “Some people want the party to focus on winning back independents and moderates, while others believe the future lies in energizing the progressive base.”

Suttle-Braun likewise argued the rise of socialist candidates reflects frustration with the party establishment more than a wholesale ideological change.

“It’s a symptom, not a takeover,” she said. “Voters aren’t reading DSA convention resolutions. They’re voting for whoever sounds serious about rent and groceries.”

More than a vetting problem

The collapse of Graham Platner’s U.S. Senate campaign in Maine has become another flashpoint in the debate over the party’s future.

Suttle-Braun described the episode as a failure of vetting.

“Maine is the case study,” she said. “Graham Platner’s collapse wasn’t an ideology problem. It was a vetting problem. We elevated a compelling story without doing the work to know who we were elevating.”

Klink argued it exposed something deeper.

“That is not merely a vetting failure,” he said. “It is what happens when a party becomes so hungry for an authentic-looking outsider that it confuses political branding with readiness to govern.”

Governors to the rescue?

As Democrats search for a standard-bearer, many strategists see governors as offering the clearest road map back to national competitiveness.

“They can’t tweet their way through a job,” Suttle-Braun said. “They have to fix roads, balance budgets, and answer for outcomes.”

She pointed to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), and Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) as examples of Democrats who have built strong political brands by stressing governing over ideological warfare.

“The 2028 field should look a lot more like the governors’ mansions than the group chats,” she said.

Blake Ashby, founder of the Red State Democrats Project and author of Socialism and the Democratic Party, also argued that Democratic governors have become the party’s strongest ambassadors because they demonstrate how government can improve people’s lives.

“Democratic governors are effectively using the power of their state to improve the lives of their citizens, reminding moderates and progressives of what we can accomplish,” he told the Washington Examiner.

Still searching for an identity

Two years after Biden’s withdrawal forced Democrats into an uncomfortable period of soul-searching, the party still has not answered the questions that emerged after its 2024 defeat.

Strategists disagree over how far Democrats should move toward the political center, how much they should support the party’s progressive wing, and who should carry the banner into 2028. But they broadly agree the next nominee must offer something more than opposition to Republicans.

Koneschusky argues Democrats must better articulate the values that unite a Democrat in Vermont with one in West Virginia. Suttle-Braun says the party must reconnect emotionally with voters. Ewald believes Democrats need a clearer vision that explains how government will improve everyday life while uniting the party’s diverse coalition.

Klink argues the challenge is even more fundamental.

“The party has always contained competing identities,” he said. “Successful leaders don’t eliminate those disagreements; they create a broader purpose that allows factions to coexist.”

SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, AND MARXISM A GUIDE TO THE IDEOLOGIES BEHIND THE ‘BLUE SCARE’

He pointed to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as leaders who united different wings of the party around themes of economic opportunity and national renewal, while Biden initially did so by promising stability after the upheaval of 2020.

“No comparable unifying figure or argument exists today,” Klink said. “The developing 2028 contest looks less like a search for the best messenger and more like a referendum on the kind of party Democrats intend to become.”

“Democrats do not simply need a charismatic leader,” he added. “They need someone strong enough to tell every faction it cannot have everything it wants — and persuasive enough to convince ordinary voters that the party once again understands their lives.”