As the Republican Party celebrates winning a commanding majority in the Senate, Democrats have begun to plot their comeback with soul-searching questions, and no clear path forward.
For their first caucus meeting since Election Day, freshly humbled Senate Democrats convened Thursday in the old Senate chamber in the Capitol to take stock of their losses and evaluate their next steps.
It was a talk the caucus had not had since 2010, when Republicans took control of the House from Democrats. This time the bruising was more personal. The discussion, at times emotional, carried on for more than three hours, and at least 27 senators spoke.
“One of the things about the old Senate chamber is, you don’t need a microphone. People speak very frankly and very much from the heart,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. “And it was really kind of a heartrending three hours of discussion of what happened and why it happened and where we should go now in the minority.”
According to senators who attended, no agreement was reached regarding the underlying problems the party faces nor how those issues might be addressed.
Some of the caucus blamed President Obama, arguing that Democratic candidates were powerless to overcome his unpopularity. Others said the Democratic Senate should have voted on more legislation, which candidates might have been able to tout in their campaigns.
Among those who spoke up was Sen. Michael Bennet, of Colorado, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Bennet, according to Sen. Chris Murphy, stressed that Democrats “are still seen as the party that believes in governance, and Republicans are the party that believes in tearing down government.”
“And when you have a country that has a deep distrust of government, it creates a problem for those of us who think there are some good things that government can do if efficiently run,” Murphy said.
“That is a real challenge for us going forward,” Murphy added. “How does our party communicate in an era where millions of voters don’t believe that government has a positive effect in their lives? I don’t have the answer to that question. I don’t.”
In the coming months, Democrats will search for answers to the questions the election has posed. But there remains widespread belief within the party that Democratic candidates ran their races as best as they could under the circumstances.
“Democrats had a great plan,” said Paul Tencher, who engineered Gary Peters’s successful Senate bid in Michigan, a rare bright spot for Democrats this year. “It was just a plan that didn’t work.”
Many Democrats have noted a disconnect between the policies many voters supported and the candidates who won. In Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor lost his re-election bid to Republican Rep. Tom Cotton by a double-digit margin, voters approved raising the minimum wage, a key Democratic proposal this year.
That problem might be solved by strategic tweaks rather than a policy overhaul.
“We need to get back to basics: sharpening our message, making it simpler and more coherent,” said Doug Thornell, a Democratic strategist at SKDKnickerbocker. “People need to know what we stand for and who we stand with.”
Absent from the Democratic discussion has been the sort of genuine handwringing displayed by Republicans in 2012 after they failed to win back the White House or the Senate.
Six months after that disappointing Election Day, the Republican National Committee unveiled its autopsy report: a 97-page, exhaustive and blunt assessment of the party’s shortcomings on policy and strategy. The “Growth and Opportunity Project” aimed to be a guiding document for the party.
Democrats have not indicated that they will analyze the 2014 midterm elections in a similar fashion, nor is it evident who in the party would take the lead on rethinking the Democratic agenda in advance of the 2016 cycle.
“It’s not like [congressional] Democrats will wrestle the agenda from the president and DNC,” said Jim Manley, a former senior aide to Reid. “The last two years of a presidency are where the president and Hill tend to diverge.”
But Obama, who will be in the two-year lame-duck period of his presidency, has not suggested that he intends to take up that role of steering the party’s future.
It’s possible that the most substantive public soul-searching among Democrats might take place on the Democratic presidential primary stage, when Hillary Clinton is expected to face off against challengers such as Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“It’s always hard for institutional leaders to figure out what’s best for the direction of the country,” said a Democratic strategist with ties to the Senate. “I think it needs to come from a candidate.”
Some Democrats predict, optimistically, that Republicans, given the reins of Congress, might drive their own ruination.
After Republicans last won the Senate from Democrats in 2002, infighting quickly distracted from the party’s new majority. In December, before the party was even able to take control, incoming Majority Leader Trent Lott resigned his leadership position after making a racially-loaded remark.
Short of such a scandal, there is the potential that Republican lawmakers could noisily obstruct legislation, as Sen. Ted Cruz did last year in forcing a government shutdown over defunding Obamacare.
But there is also a sense among Democrats that the party’s course will correct itself. Democratic candidates tend to fare better in presidential election years, when voter turnout is higher. And Democrats also will be defending fewer Senate seats in 2016, taking more fights to Republican turf.
“What I know is that the national political mood is kind of like the weather in New England,” Murphy said. “If you don’t like it, just wait a little while.”
