Democrats Are Already Feuding Over the Meaning of the Midterms

The votes haven’t been fully counted yet in the 2026 midterm elections, but Democrats are already clashing over the meaning of the results, which saw the party sweep control of both the House and Senate in a major rebuke to President Donald Trump.

Progressive and centrist Democrats alike won in red districts and red states across the country, making inroads with virtually every demographic group. The makeup of Democrats’ new Senate majority next year will include several progressives like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine, who ran on single-payer health care and abolishing the filibuster, and centrists like Roy Cooper in North Carolina and Adam Hamilton in Kansas, who are opposed to both.

But progressive lawmakers and advocates argue that Tuesday’s results demand a more aggressive posture against Trump in the new Democratic-led Congress, including ramping up investigations of alleged corruption in his administration, fighting harder against mass deportation and strict immigration policies, and denying funding to the Iran war.

Reacting to news of Democrats winning control of the Senate in a post online, Democratic Rep. Greg Casar (Texas) urged the Senate to abolish the filibuster next year in order to pass progressive legislation. Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has warned that Democrats may fail to capture the White House in 2028 if they don’t show voters they are on their side.

Other progressives urged Democrats to engage in even more hardball tactics.

“Tonight, voters ended Trump’s Republican trifecta and his blank check. They also closed the book on a Democratic Party that folds when it counts,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, said in a statement. “For too long, Democratic leaders treated caving as strategy, from walking away from the shutdown fight empty-handed to waving through Trump’s nominees. That era is over.”

“Democrats now hold the gavels in both chambers, and for the first time they’ll have a bloc of fighters inside both caucuses pushing them to use them. Voters didn’t flip Congress for polite hearings and strongly worded letters,” Levin added.

Meanwhile, Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, spun Democrat James Talarico’s huge victory over Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race as a win for progressive messaging around economic populism.

“James Talarico just showed Democrats how to win in Texas by consistently challenging billionaire power, calling out Wall Street and Big Tech, and calling for bold structural change,” Green said in a statement. “Political insiders have spent months debating whether Talarico is a ‘moderate’ or a ‘progressive,’ and they’re missing the point. He ran as an economic populist who promised to shake up a broken system, and as a person of faith with a moral obligation to challenge corporate greed.”

Polls showed the economy and corruption as the top two issues in this election. Most Democrats ran on ending Trump’s war in Iran and bringing down the high costs of gas, health care and consumer goods. They also vowed to crack down on allegations of self-dealing and corruption in Trump’s administration.

Top Democratic officials have sought to tamp down aspirations about passing far-reaching progressive legislation while Trump remains in the White House, stressing Democrats would focus instead on addressing affordability issues, ending the Iran war and reversing Republican cuts to health care.

“We got to govern,” Sen. Mark Kelly (Arizona), a potential 2028 presidential contender, told The Washington Sun on a press call on Tuesday night. “We’ve got to deliver for the American people. And you guys know how it works in the Senate — we got to get Republicans on board with some of the stuff we want to do. So it’s got to be somewhat bipartisan. We got to send legislation to the president’s desk.”

Asked about progressive calls to fight Trump harder and the possibility of another House impeachment of Trump next year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also seemed to dismiss the idea Tuesday night.

“Our number one focus has to be producing for the American people in terms of their number one need, the high costs that Trump has imposed on them, and second, to go after the corruption,” Schumer told The Sun at a press conference outside the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the centrist think tank Third Way and a former senior aide to Schumer, said Tuesday’s results are “a spectacular night for moderate Democrats,” who flipped seats in red states like Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina.

He also sought to portray El-Sayed’s win over Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan, a race that was closer than Democrats initially expected, as the result of a favorable environment for Democrats nationwide, rather than any kind of verdict for advancing more progressive policies, as some progressive advocates have argued.

“In a normal year, in a neutral year, El-Sayed probably doesn’t win Michigan,” Kessler argued. “He’s getting a boost. But in the places where we’re having shocking outcomes, these Democrats are moderate.”

With Democrats overperforming across the board on Tuesday, it will be difficult for either intraparty faction to claim a mandate for their preferred policy outcomes, but the debate is likely to rage on into the new Congress.

“Everyone got wins here, because we did it as a big tent and a family,” one national Democratic operative told The Sun.