Republicans toiling to re-elect President Trump are freshly optimistic, confident a Democratic Party dominated by ambitious progressives is scaring wayward factions of the conservative coalition back into the fold.

With a midterm election rebuke and disastrous government shutdown in the rear view, Trump’s 2020 campaign team and constellation of key outside supporters are sensing a turnaround. The president hasn’t changed his controversial ways. But Trump’s top lieutenants believe that newly empowered liberal Democrats — in Washington and across the country — plus the sometimes peculiar spectacle of the Democratic primary, are causing uneasy Republicans to reconsider their opposition.