‘We need to get to work’: Democrats debate what to do with their midterm mandate

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What comes in a wave: So many Democrats winning means so many people were right about what they needed to do to win, that their claimed lessons directly contradict each other.

Is the model for Democrats the brash Egyptian American doctor who ran on big promises like Medicare for All and talked throughout his victory speech about Michiganders suffering through higher costs because of money sent to Israel for the war in Gaza?

Is it the mild-mannered Presbyterian seminarian who talked about Jesus and also border enforcement — while splitting the difference on Israel — to lead a Democratic takeover of Texas after the party went 32 years without winning a statewide race?

Is it the Jewish governor of a swing state who talked up a pragmatic, reach-across-the-aisle record and won by 20 points while also carrying four swing House seats and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature?

“I don’t think it’s about left or middle or center – I think this is about listening to people,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNN in a phone call on Wednesday afternoon. “They are disgusted about the chaos, the cruelty and the corruption. They do not want to be told what to do by a group of small, selfish men who are plundering our nation — and they put Democrats in charge to change that.”

Abdul El-Sayed, James Talarico and Shapiro are all resounding winners coming out of Tuesday’s midterms, which delivered once-unthinkable results like a Democratic senator from South Carolina , the first Black woman governor in history elected in Georgia, and a sweep of midwestern states that voted three times for President Donald Trump.

Amid the euphoria, Democrats are now debating how to make these midterms different from other elections where politicians’ promises fall short — and how to position themselves for a post-Trump era that may arrive faster than anyone may have thought thanks to Tuesday’s results.

“There’s not just fury at what Republicans have done wrong, but an invitation for Democrats who need to earn the trust of the American people to do so by getting in there and focusing on the things that have motivated people to go to the polls,” said Pete Buttigieg , the former transportation secretary and likely 2028 contender, after speaking at the Michigan Democrats’ joint party, where every few minutes a DJ interrupted the music to call out each big win.

Buttigieg urged Democrats to move quickly on formalizing an agenda.

“It’s taking stock of all of these 2-to-1 issues that most Americans agree on — that all Democrats agree on, that many Republicans agree on, and that Washington Republicans are energetically against,” Buttigieg said, listing raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and the child tax credit, and political reforms limiting money in politics and gerrymandering. “If we do them in a rapid-fire — I’m thinking [bills called] HR 1, 2, 3, 4 all the way to 15 — that will show the Democrats are taking seriously the issues that sent them into office and daring the White House to get in their way.”

Trump is still president for two more years and there’s no way to legislate to the lower prices many voters said drove them to vote for Democrats, especially if they can’t find a way to work with him.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive agenda-setter who spent the final day of the campaign enthusiastically stumping for El-Sayed around the state, said that goes up to and including working on bills with Trump, if the president wants.

“There’s a good place to go for healthcare, tax fairness and childcare,” she said. “Some very popular bills, like surveillance pricing — that’s a place that we put it on the floor and say to the Republicans, ‘Put up or shut up.’ Stop the war halfway around the world. We’ve got the power of the purse. We can’t do everything, but damn, we can do a lot, and we better.”

Rep. Adam Gray, who, thanks in part to California redistricting, won his second term by 20 points after winning his first in 2024 by 187 votes, said the lesson for Democrats is in not governing like the Republicans the last two years. To him, that means means action on nitty-gritty items like permit reform on energy infrastructure and cutting wait times at Social Security offices, while getting people more money by raising the minimum wage.

“If we don’t find ideas that work and nobody’s life gets better or easier to navigate,” Gray said, “then voters are going to tire of us too.”

Touting his own resounding win in “the toughest swing state in the entire country,” Shapiro pointed out that now 9 of the 10 largest states will have Democratic governors, and many House districts that went with Trump two years ago will be represented by Democrats too.

“We now have the keys to the car,” Shapiro said, “and we have to drive it responsibly.”

Here in Michigan, a state that is in many ways a microcosm of the electorate the last 10 years, Democratic leaders themselves aren’t sure exactly what to make of a race that generated extreme interest and encouraged El-Sayed to declare to a large crowd that stuck around until 2 a.m. that he was going to use his seat “to transform our politics.”

One of El-Sayed’s running themes through his victory speech is what an unlikely candidate he was — a trained doctor turned public health official, running to become the first Muslim ever elected to the Senate with a very long and undeniably Arabic name. Republicans — and some Democrats — thought he would put the Senate seat in danger with his support of far-left priorities like Medicare for All, his challenges during the primary with Black and Jewish voters, and his alliance with prominent democratic socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Instead, he called his shot and hit the 7-point win he predicted beforehand — though less than Michigan Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson, who won by 11 but also had to be rushed from shaking hands with supporters after her victory speech so that El-Sayed could take the stage to a more raucous reception.

Abby Squires, a 35-year-old Lansing resident, spoke to CNN after voting for Benson, El-Sayed and Rep.-elect Will Lawrence. Squires said she wants Democrats to take her vote and others as calls to move quickly on healthcare, education and assistive technology for the disabled.

“It’s important to hear from the people that these policies are actually affecting,” Squires said.

Lawrence beat out two more moderate Democrats in the August primary then on Tuesday edged out incumbent GOP Rep. Tom Barrett after quitting the Democratic Socialists of America and trying to modulate himself going into November.

In an interview with CNN shortly after voting for himself in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church, Lawrence — who, like El-Sayed, was being trailed by a three-person documentary crew — said that while he saw a victory as a validation of turning away from taking corporate donations, he’s also reading it as a call for fast and concrete moves.

“ We can take action immediately to restrain the president’s out of control tariff agenda, which has caused prices to go up nowhere more than here in Michigan. We can also take action to reverse the disastrous cuts that have been made to the Affordable Care Act, as well as Medicaid,” Lawrence told CNN.

Elissa Slotkin narrowly won Michigan’s other Senate seat two years ago against the same Republican candidate as El-Sayed while running a very different campaign. The senator, who has spent much time since traveling the country telling Democrats they need to pursue a more moderate path — and stoking chatter of a 2028 presidential run on her argument, declined an interview request on Election Day to discuss what she was taking away from this race.

But on Monday afternoon, Slotkin popped into an El-Sayed event in Flint, insisting that she and her now soon-to-be colleague “agree on the important things.” Then El-Sayed took the stage to enthusiastic cheers from both a recently laid-off 68-year-old local named Erin Moss and a second-year law student of Iranian descent who arrived from New York wearing a Palestine soccer jersey and keffiyeh draped around his shoulders.

Maurice Mitchell, the national director for the left-leaning Working Families Party, said that’s why of all the races in the country, he spent the final days of the election pushing for El-Sayed in Michigan, as he had during the primary.

“ What it says is that we are absolutely in a populist anti-establishment moment, and candidates like Abdul can win everywhere. And I think that changes the political calculus for everything,” Mitchell told CNN in the parking lot after El-Sayed’s event Monday in Flint. “Working-class people are screaming, as loud as they can, ‘We cannot afford to live in this country and we need immediate relief!’”

Mitchell said that leaves him hopeful, with a warning.

“We might be on the verge of actually participating in a political realignment in this country,” he said, but “if the Democratic Party doesn’t choose to lead this populist moment, there’s a bunch of right-wing populists who would be more than happy to do that.”

Many of the Michiganders who voted for El-Sayed said they were convinced by his more basic talk of costs and unity that he campaigned on through the final weeks.

Semira Sharif, a nurse from Farmington Hills who came to El-Sayed’s event on Monday in the hall usually used as the Royal Oak farmer’s market, said she’s tired of the pain she hears from the seniors she works with or her teenage children who don’t have jobs.

“If he wins, at least we will have Medicare,” Sharif, who immigrated from Ethiopia 45 years ago, told CNN. “It’s not just one race is hurting. It’s everyone: Black, White, Asian, Jews, Christians.”

One of El-Sayed’s running themes through his victory speech is what an unlikely candidate he was, even though he had previously run for governor. At a moment when feelings of being abandoned by politicians is high, that anti-politician vibe ties him together with lots of other Tuesday winners, from Methodist minister Adam Hamilton who won a Senate seat in Kansas to Tejano music star Bobby Pulido and smokejumper Sam Forstag, who flipped House seats in Texas and Montana.

That will be hard to match for any of the longtime officeholders who are currently gearing up to seek the Democratic presidential nomination — just as mashing a collection of non-politicians into legislating starting in January won’t be easy. Incoming House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have a bloc of democratic socialists in his membership but also a newly enlarged Blue Dog Coalition of moderates.

But if Democrats want to win the 2028 and 2032 presidential elections — and if they want to keep the control they won of the House and the Senate — they’ll have to manage both feats.

A person close to Ocasio-Cortez forecast earlier in the year to CNN that her potential appeal and appetite for a presidential campaign would be “put to the test in the coming months: Will Democratic candidates in tough races recognize she is a net positive for their campaign?” She ultimately made a handful of appearances, both with ideological allies and more moderate Democrats like Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia.

An Ocasio-Cortez aide argued to CNN that she did campaign in tough races, including for winning Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, but did not respond when asked whether she hadn’t gotten more invitations or whether she declined some of those she got.

But all of the wins mean that the congresswoman but also other potential 2028 contenders — from Buttigieg to Shapiro to former Vice President Kamala Harris and as many as two dozen others — can claim a hand in a significant midterms victory.

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Even Bill Clinton, who lived through his own massive midterm repudiation in 1994, was in Tupelo last Friday to help stir up enthusiasm and legitimacy for Scott Colom, who’s locked in a tight race for Mississippi’s Senate seat.

“Some days I hardly recognize the country I have loved so much all my life. The corruption, the ego projects,” he said in Tupelo, adding, “they like checks and balances as they define them. They get the checks, and we pay the balance.”

On Wednesday, Clinton wrote his own statement warning his party not to get too caught up with the scoreboard and think of Tuesday as “an opportunity and responsibility to rebuild trust.”

“Yesterday was a great day for our democracy,” he wrote. “If we want to hold on to what we’re feeling today, we need to get to work.”

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一股浪潮涌来：这么多民主党人获胜，意味着很多人对赢得选举所需采取的措施都是正确的，以至于他们声称的经验教训彼此直接矛盾。

民主党的榜样是不是那位言辞激烈的埃及裔美国医生？他竞选时许下了全民医保等宏大承诺，并在胜选演讲中反复提到，由于政府向以色列支付加沙战争的资金，密歇根州居民正在承受更高的医疗成本？

这位性格温和的长老会神学生，既谈论耶稣，也谈论边境执法，在以色列问题上态度摇摆不定，他是否会领导民主党在德克萨斯州夺取政权，而此前该党已经 32 年没有赢得过全州范围的选举？

这位来自摇摆州的犹太裔州长，以务实、跨党派合作的政绩著称，并以 20 个百分点的优势赢得选举，同时还赢得了四个摇摆州众议院席位，并在州议会两院都获得了多数席位。

“我认为这无关左翼、中间派或中立派——我认为这关乎倾听人民的声音，”宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗周三下午在接受CNN电话采访时表示。“他们对混乱、残酷和腐败感到厌恶。他们不想被一群掠夺我们国家、自私自利的小人指手画脚——他们让民主党人掌权，就是为了改变这一切。”

阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德、詹姆斯·塔拉里科和夏皮罗都是周二中期选举的绝对赢家，这次选举带来了曾经难以想象的结果，例如南卡罗来纳州的民主党参议员、佐治亚州历史上第一位当选的黑人女州长，以及中西部各州三次投票支持唐纳德·特朗普总统的全面胜利。

在一片欢腾之中，民主党人现在正在讨论如何让这次中期选举与其他选举有所不同，因为在其他选举中，政客们的承诺往往无法兑现——以及如何为后特朗普时代做好准备，由于周二的选举结果，这个时代可能会比任何人预想的都要来得更快。

“人们不仅对共和党人所犯的错误感到愤怒，而且还向需要赢得美国人民信任的民主党人发出邀请，让他们积极参与并专注于那些激励人们去投票的事情，”前交通部长、2028 年总统大选热门人选皮特·布蒂吉格在密歇根州民主党联合派对上发表讲话后说道。在派对上，每隔几分钟，一位 DJ 就会打断音乐，宣布每一项重大胜利。

布蒂吉格敦促民主党人尽快制定正式议程。

布蒂吉格说：“我们要认真审视所有这些大多数美国人都认同的、民主党人普遍认同的、许多共和党人也认同的、而华盛顿的共和党人却极力反对的议题。”他列举了提高最低工资、扩大医疗补助计划和儿童税收抵免、以及限制政治献金和选区划分不公的政治改革等议题。“如果我们迅速推进这些议题——我指的是法案编号为HR 1、2、3、4，一直到15——这将表明民主党人正在认真对待那些让他们上台的议题，并挑战白宫，看他们能否阻挠。”

特朗普还要再当两年总统，而且没有办法通过立法来解决许多选民表示促使他们投票给民主党的低物价问题，尤其是在他们找不到与他合作的方法的情况下。

马萨诸塞州参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦是一位进步派议程制定者，她在竞选的最后一天热情地在全州各地为埃尔-赛义德助选。她说，这甚至包括与特朗普合作制定法案，如果总统愿意的话。

“医疗保健、税收公平和儿童保育方面，我们都有很好的解决方案，”她说。“一些非常受欢迎的法案，比如监控收费——我们会把这些法案提交到议会，对共和党人说：‘要么拿出实际行动，要么闭嘴。’停止这场远在世界另一端的战争。我们掌握着财政大权。我们不可能面面俱到，但我们能做的确实很多，而且我们必须做得更好。”

众议员亚当·格雷（Adam Gray）在2024年以187票的微弱优势赢得首个任期后，又以20个百分点的优势连任。这部分要归功于加州重新划分选区。格雷表示，民主党人应该吸取的教训是，不能像共和党过去两年那样执政。在他看来，这意味着要着手处理一些具体问题，例如能源基础设施的许可改革、缩短社会保障办公室的等待时间，同时通过提高最低工资来增加民众的收入。

格雷说：“如果我们找不到行之有效的办法，没有人的生活变得更好或更容易适应，那么选民也会对我们感到厌倦。”

沙皮罗吹嘘自己在“全国最艰难的摇摆州”取得了压倒性胜利，并指出现在10个最大的州中有9个将由民主党州长执政，而且两年前支持特朗普的许多众议院选区也将由民主党人代表。

“我们现在掌握了主动权，”沙皮罗说，“我们必须负责任地驾驶它。”

在密歇根州，这个州在很多方面都是过去 10 年选民的缩影，民主党领导人自己也不确定该如何看待这场引起极大关注的竞选，这场竞选促使埃尔-赛义德向一大群一直待到凌晨 2 点的民众宣布，他将利用他的席位“改变我们的政治”。

在埃尔-赛义德的胜选演讲中，反复强调他作为候选人的出人意料——他原本是一名受过专业训练的医生，后来转行成为公共卫生官员，却竞选参议员，力图成为历史上首位当选参议员的穆斯林，而且他的名字很长，明显带有阿拉伯语特征。共和党人——以及一些民主党人——认为他支持全民医保等极左翼政策，在初选中遭遇黑人和犹太选民的挑战，以及与伯尼·桑德斯参议员和亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯众议员等知名民主社会主义者的结盟，都会使他的参议院席位岌岌可危。

相反，他做出了自己的预测，最终以 7 分的优势获胜——尽管比密歇根州当选州长乔斯林·本森少，后者以 11 分的优势获胜，但在发表胜选演讲后，她不得不匆匆离开与支持者握手的环节，以便埃尔-赛义德能够上台接受更热烈的欢迎。

35岁的兰辛居民艾比·斯奎尔斯在投票支持本森、埃尔-赛义德和当选众议员威尔·劳伦斯后接受了CNN的采访。斯奎尔斯表示，她希望民主党人将她和其他人的投票视为呼吁，敦促他们加快推进残疾人医疗保健、教育和辅助技术的发展。

“听取这些政策实际影响到的人们的意见非常重要，”斯奎尔斯说。

劳伦斯在 8 月的初选中击败了另外两名温和派民主党人，然后在周二的选举中险胜现任共和党众议员汤姆·巴雷特。此前，他退出了美国民主社会主义者组织，并试图在 11 月的选举中调整自己的立场。

在长老会第一教堂地下室投票给自己后不久，劳伦斯接受了 CNN 的采访。和埃尔-赛义德一样，当时也有一支三人纪录片摄制组跟随他。劳伦斯表示，虽然他认为这场胜利证明了他拒绝接受企业捐款的做法是正确的，但他同时也认为这是对采取快速、具体行动的呼吁。

劳伦斯告诉CNN：“我们可以立即采取行动，遏制总统失控的关税政策，该政策导致物价上涨，密歇根州受到的影响尤为严重。我们还可以采取行动，扭转对《平价医疗法案》和医疗补助计划的灾难性削减。”

两年前，埃莉萨·斯洛特金以微弱优势击败了与埃尔-赛义德相同的共和党候选人，赢得了密歇根州的另一个参议院席位，但她当时的竞选策略与埃尔-赛义德截然不同。此后，这位参议员花费大量时间走遍全国各地，敦促民主党人采取更为温和的路线，并以此为由，引发了人们对她可能在2028年竞选总统的猜测。选举日当天，她拒绝了记者的采访请求，不愿谈及她从这次选举中获得了哪些启示。

但周一下午，斯洛特金突然出现在埃尔-赛义德在弗林特举办的一场活动上，坚持说她和这位即将成为同事的人“在重要的事情上要达成共识”。随后，埃尔-赛义德登台，受到了当地一位名叫艾琳·莫斯的68岁、最近失业的居民和一位来自纽约的伊朗裔二年级法学院学生的热烈欢呼。这位学生身穿巴勒斯坦足球队球衣，肩上披着阿拉伯头巾。

左倾的工薪家庭党全国主任莫里斯·米切尔表示，正因如此，在全国所有竞选中，他才在选举的最后几天里全力支持密歇根州的埃尔-赛义德，就像他在初选期间所做的那样。

“这表明我们正处于一个民粹主义反建制的时代，像阿卜杜勒这样的候选人可以在任何地方赢得选举。我认为这改变了一切政治格局，”米切尔周一在弗林特埃尔-赛义德的活动结束后，在停车场告诉CNN。“工薪阶层正在竭尽全力地呐喊：‘我们负担不起在这个国家的生活，我们需要立即救济！’”

米切尔表示，这让他感到充满希望，但也提出了警告。

他说：“我们可能正处于参与这个国家政治重组的边缘，但是，如果民主党不选择领导这场民粹主义运动，那么有很多右翼民粹主义者会非常乐意这样做。”

许多投票给埃尔-赛义德的密歇根州选民表示，他们被他在竞选最后几周所强调的成本和团结等更基本的理念所打动。

来自法明顿山的护士塞米拉·谢里夫周一来到埃尔-赛义德在皇家橡树农贸市场常设大厅举办的活动现场，她说她厌倦了听到她所服务的年长者或她那些没有工作的十几岁孩子诉说的痛苦。

“如果他赢了，至少我们还能享受医疗保险，”45年前从埃塞俄比亚移民到美国的谢里夫告诉CNN。“受苦的不仅仅是某个种族，而是所有人：黑人、白人、亚洲人、犹太人、基督徒。”

埃尔-赛义德在胜选演讲中反复强调，尽管他之前曾竞选过州长，但他当初当选是多么出人意料。在民众普遍感到被政客抛弃的当下，这种反政客情绪将他与周二其他胜选者联系起来，例如赢得堪萨斯州参议员席位的卫理公会牧师亚当·汉密尔顿，以及在德克萨斯州和蒙大拿州分别赢得众议院席位的特哈诺音乐明星鲍比·普利多和跳伞消防员萨姆·福斯塔格。

对于目前正积极争取民主党总统候选人提名的那些长期担任公职的人来说，这无疑是一项艰巨的挑战——正如要让一群非政治人士从明年一月开始制定法律一样困难。即将上任的众议院议长哈基姆·杰弗里斯不仅拥有一批民主社会主义者，还拥有一个新近扩大的温和派蓝狗联盟。

但是，如果民主党人想要赢得 2028 年和 2032 年的总统选举，并且想要保住他们在众议院和参议院的控制权，他们就必须同时完成这两项壮举。

今年早些时候，一位与奥卡西奥-科尔特斯关系密切的人士向CNN预测，她潜在的吸引力和竞选总统的意愿将在未来几个月“受到考验：那些选情胶着的民主党候选人是否会意识到她对他们的竞选有利？”最终，她还是露面了几次，既有与意识形态盟友的会面，也有像弗吉尼亚州众议员尤金·温德曼这样较为温和的民主党人的公开露面。

奥卡西奥-科尔特斯的一名助手向 CNN 辩称，她确实在一些竞争激烈的竞选活动中进行了助选，包括帮助缅因州参议员候选人特洛伊·杰克逊赢得选举，但当被问及她是否没有收到更多邀请，或者她是否拒绝了一些收到的邀请时，该助手没有回应。

但所有这些胜利都意味着这位女议员以及其他潜在的 2028 年总统候选人——从布蒂吉格到夏皮罗，再到前副总统卡马拉·哈里斯以及其他多达二十几位候选人——都可以声称自己为一场意义重大的中期选举胜利做出了贡献。

乔·兰贝蒂/盖蒂图片社

Megan Varner/Getty Images

就连曾在 1994 年中期选举中惨败的比尔·克林顿，上周五也来到图珀洛，帮助斯科特·科洛姆激发热情，提升其在密西西比州参议院席位争夺战中的合法性。

“有时候，我几乎认不出我一生深爱的这个国家了。腐败横行，自私自利，”他在图珀洛说道，并补充道，“他们喜欢他们自己定义的权力制衡。他们拿到了权力，而我们承担了后果。”

周三，克林顿发表声明，警告他的党内人士不要过于关注比分，而应将周二视为“重建信任的机会和责任”。

“昨天对我们的民主来说是伟大的一天，”他写道。“如果我们想保持今天这种感觉，我们就需要开始行动起来。”