Part I
Ten Years for a Stronger Future
While combating an increasingly autocratic and authoritarian government lies at the forefront of the Democratic agenda, and reclaiming the US House is the top party priority for 2026, the Democratic Party must also develop a plan to carry itself and America beyond 2026, 2027, and 2028. While the campaign successes of 2025 are encouraging, it is essential the Democratic Party develop, organize, and implement a 10-year strategic plan to align the infrastructure, partnerships, and people needed to win — to “build to win and build to last.”
Democrats need a new, forward-thinking electoral strategy focusing on more than who or what is on the next ballot — to address how Democrats can reconnect with Americans at every level across the country. Democrats must organize everywhere to win anywhere.
Winning anywhere requires a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more prosperous America for everyone. Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure — yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their interests because they do not see themselves reflected in or respected by the Democratic Party.
The close margins in 2024 may lead some to argue Democrat leadership and candidates may not need to change too much to win. Perhaps with a better political climate, or advancing slightly different policies, or with a different national ticket, victory could have been assured. This kind of thinking — denialist at its core — prevents the Party from seeking real accountability, and from making the changes needed to deliver for the American people.
To grow, Democrats must admit and accept some hard truths about the Party. Since the high point of the 2008 Obama landslide, when he received nearly 10 million more votes than John McCain, the Democratic Party has lost the script and has lost the confidence of millions of everyday Americans — and election results show it.
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Part II
Campaign Fundraising
Most Democratic voters, activists, and donors are unaware of the massive amounts of money Democratic candidates and incumbents can access to run campaigns. Even many Democratic incumbents and candidates are not fully aware of the ways campaign fundraising has exploded within the political ecosystem — and are therefore not fully appreciating the opportunities they have to demand more innovation from their strategists and consultants to rethink strategies and systems. For Democrats, it isn’t a money problem, it’s a strategy problem.
Contested Congressional races now routinely exceed $10 million, statewide races can reach $100 million, and Presidential races easily exceed a billion — and most recently — two billion dollars.
With all of these resources, why are many Democrats crafting budgets to “spend at the end”?
Democrats spent nearly $9 billion in the 2024 cycle, and have little to show for it. Aside from losing the White House, Senate, and House, there is no permanent infrastructure, no ongoing organizing, and Democrats were left with a diminished brand. Billions of dollars invested in an immeasurable number of electrons in paid media, with many communities feeling left out.
Democrats take this hard-earned cash and send enormous amounts to the legacy and social media platforms owned by oligarchs.
When will Democratic incumbents and challengers demand their campaigns invest in the communities and people they represent and serve — and invest earlier in the campaign cycle, and between elections? How will Democrats seek to reduce the burn rate of fundraising to leave more resources available for investment in organizing and community engagement?
How quickly Democrats can even answer these questions will drive success moving forward.
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Part III
What Happened in 2024?
Is there a single point of failure for 2024?
Some will point to the decision by President Biden to seek re-election instead of passing the torch, but Democrats do not have a time machine to go back and change this decision, and the particular circumstances of the 2023–2024 political landscape will likely never happen again.
What Democrats can no longer ignore is no matter what the circumstances will be moving forward, the party should be strong enough and capable enough to elect anyone — the proverbial ham sandwich, if necessary. Because Republicans have now proven they can nominate and elect a convicted felon.
So where do Democrats go from here?
A good start is evaluating the systems and structures campaigns need to win — and identify potential improvements needed to once again forge effective connections with voters to regain their trust.
Policy has generally not been a problem for most Democrats. Important policy issues Democrats have long championed, like reproductive freedom, access to healthcare through Medicaid expansion, increasing wages, and other supports for American workers have passed overwhelmingly through ballot measures in states Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lost.
Many “Democratic” voters who cannot contemplate ever voting for a Republican end up choosing the couch instead of the voting booth because voters feel and believe Democratic candidates don’t understand what they are going through. Almost every part of the “traditional” Democratic vote underperformed Republican-leaning cohorts and regions.
As Democrats navigate the lessons learned from 2024, reflect on the wins throughout 2025, and plan for 2026, 2027, 2028 and beyond, this has to be the north star — considering how voters make decisions, and how Democrats have to regain and re-earn their trust and support.
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Part IV
In the States
The 2024 Presidential campaign set an electoral target map of seven battleground states and two Congressional Districts in states where electoral votes are allocated by Congressional District.
Exploring the inputs in the states helps explain the outputs. While most political analyses focus on election returns and exit poll data to decipher why candidates win and lose, digging into the voter file and other data sources informs a deeper analysis. The excellent Catalist review of the 2024 cycle contains several critical lessons about where Democrats need to go from an electorate perspective. This review seeks to discern whether campaign actions impacted some of those outcomes.
There are a few key findings:
- Paid Media — Despite heavy spending advantages for the Democrats, the Trump campaign was able to effectively match the Democrats in the placement of traditional media.
- Earned Media — Trump and Vance traveled more to the battleground states than Harris and Walz, while Harris and Walz made more stops within the states.
- The Ground Game — While a few coordinated campaigns were strong, most programs were late to scale, and relied on high-volume, low-contact tactics to generate attempts.
- Direct Mail — Overall, Republicans spent more and invested earlier in direct mail than Democrats.
- Battleground Voter Turnout — Changes in voter participation resulted in a more Republican-leaning electorate, as Democrats missed opportunities to shape the electorate.
The unprecedented circumstances of the 2024 campaign — with the disastrous debate and subsequent candidate switch — are not likely to reoccur, but the lessons from 2024 cannot be glossed over because history might not repeat itself. Instead, the actions Democrats need to take should be assessed by accepting how the Republicans elected a deeply flawed candidate with a proven record of failure, while Democrats struggled — under unprecedented circumstances — to introduce a candidate and win an election in 107 days.
Democrats have to be stronger, and need to prepare for the unexpected and unprecedented. This starts with examining the voting shortfalls across the nation, learning how to reverse them, and evaluating the systems and infrastructure to build to win and build to last.
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Part V
The Senate
Democratic campaigns, the DSCC, Senate Majority PAC, Labor, and many other partners have developed a solid, multi-cycle approach to winning, with effective lanes for content creation, message delivery, organizing, and research. The rigorous approach to campaigns by Senate Democrats saved four seats in a brutal anti-incumbent cycle, and bodes well for Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
In every state, Democrats found ways to distinguish themselves from the Party or the top of the ticket — because they had no choice. Democratic Senators and Senate candidates are confronted with a weak Democratic brand, and in many instances, seek to represent states outside the Presidential battlegrounds. This forces them to forge their own paths and sometimes leads to the painful and costly recreation of processes and infrastructure because there has not been a national commitment to a permanent campaign.
There are helpful lessons in the way candidates were able to outperform the Presidential campaign in rural and exurban counties and communities. These candidates have proven a simple concept — showing up and campaigning in places national Democrats have ignored can and does create votes.
At the same time, Democratic turnout in the cities and suburbs dropped — inside and outside the Presidential battlegrounds. Without the additional resources of a Presidential campaign, the coordinated campaign programs outside the battlegrounds were smaller or later than needed.
Democratic Senate and statewide candidates met or exceeded the Harris vote totals, while Republican after Republican underperformed Trump in decisive fashion. Democrats were perilously close to a wipeout, and it took sharp campaign work and sharper elbows to disqualify Republican candidates and squeeze out needed wins.
With this tip of the hat to the collective Senate campaign team, it’s important not to lose sight of the potential for improvement, as well as the risk created by a cascading Senate map dictated by which Senate class is in-cycle. Senate planners will continue to target non-Presidential battlegrounds because they have to — and future Presidential planners should be finding ways to better support the ticket.
As the calendar and clock tick down towards November 3rd, 2026, stakeholders should continue to prioritize the Senate and support specific efforts to improve participation across demographic and geographic priorities.
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Part VI
The House
Combating an increasingly autocratic and authoritarian government lies at the forefront of the Democratic agenda, and reclaiming the US House is the top party priority for 2026. Absent partisan redistricting by Republicans in 2022, Democrats likely would have kept the House after reapportionment; and without a new wave of partisan gerrymandering, Democrats would be assured of an expansive majority in 2026.
House Democrats do an exceptional job directing resources into battleground districts — protecting incumbents and targeting vulnerable Republicans.
The States reviews (Part IV) show how the campaigns leveraged resources into smart media placement strategies to win in tough environments, and how many House Democrats out-performed the top of the ticket to win. The Fundraising analysis (Part II) shows Democratic incumbents and challengers are well-resourced in their contests through direct fundraising. The Spending analysis (Part IX) shows these campaigns generally run tactically focused programs and are supported by smartly targeted independent expenditures which position the Districts for an effective close to the election.
There is no path for Democrats to break red-state trifectas or flip statewide offices without first organizing at the Congressional district level to get there. This is particularly true for the Democrats in states outside the battlegrounds — in either safe states or the potential future states Democrats need to win.
Democrats can pool resources, share best practices, and target new voters through a modern coordinated campaign — even in “safe” states — to help elect Democrats across the ballot. These state tables need the experience and leadership of Democratic Members to get there faster.
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Part VII
Organizing
Democratic candidates and incumbents must demand a more effective organizing model for the Democratic Party. As more information (and misinformation and disinformation) now moves directly to voters, Democrats must return to organizing as a key way to develop relationships from the ground up, community by community.
Candidates, incumbents, stakeholders, and funders need to decide how to define quality organizing. Honest and overdue conversations are needed — and the practitioners have many ideas and answers. Donors and party leaders need to align and define the tactics and outcomes they will support and measure to help Democrats reclaim organizing muscle.
It is also time for serious conversations about roles and lanes and what the future can be, especially given how campaigns and parties can, apparently, now coordinate with outside entities who engage in these types of activities.
Democrats need to adjust to these shifting legal parameters and a loosening of constraints to reassess the essential roles everyone can play to cultivate effective engagement and two-way conversations with voters across the nation.
Democrats need to recommit to training. To better plan and organize for the future, Democrats must overcome a persistent failure to effectively train, retain, and sustain human capital — the candidates, staff, and activists — within the party.
Registration is a priority for Republicans, and it must again be so for Democrats. The Democratic Party, through the DNC, Association of State Democratic Committee, and the State Parties will work to register voters on the hard side.
The broader ecosystem needs an “always on” approach to voter registration. Nevada first flipped after years of investment in registration. Georgia and Arizona flipped in 2020 because of years of organizing and registration by funded in-state groups and the party. There are proven best practices and proven organizations ready to do the work — they need the resources and a commitment to continuous improvement to get started.
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Part VIII
On Messaging
In the current media ecosystem, Republicans “own” and Democrats “rent.” Democrats pay for seasonal access to the networks, stations, platforms, and newspapers owned by Republicans or right-wing entities, to advertise and communicate with voters.
A major share of Democratic fundraising comes from individuals and low-dollar contributions. Within the current approach to paid media, Democrats are essentially raising billions of dollars from retirees, activists, working Americans, and organized labor, and transferring most of it to the pockets of legacy media and digital oligarchs. Democrats are funding right-wing media to buy more properties and expand their ability to drive partisan perspectives.
With a free and fair press, Democrats have a shot to make their case. When publishers and owners have a partisan point of view, and platforms are potentially rigged in one party’s favor, it’s more difficult for Democrats to break through.
“Always On” — By the time Democratic candidates show up, often in the last few months of a campaign, it can be too late to persuade voters when the other side has been framing and shaping partisan information flow for months, if not longer. Democrats need a permanent campaign to regain trust and pull people in.
Countering Misinformation and Disinformation — American elections are now influenced by more than American interests. There is an obvious and conscious effort by foreign and rogue domestic actors to shape electoral choices through misinformation and disinformation directed at American voters. Democrats must continue to make their case, define their opponents, and have effective rapid response operations in place to protect the party and the candidates.
The Failure to Define Trump — Voting is a choice. And negative messaging needs to be a part of the story as choices are framed for voters. The retrospective evaluation of Donald Trump’s presidency was too positive. The inability to properly frame Trump to be as terrible as he has quickly proven to be was a massive missed opportunity given what was a necessity for the campaign. If Democrats were not going to win on the “yes,” there was a compelling need to disqualify Trump.
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Part IX
Campaign Spending
Democrats can now raise billions — can those billions be spent in smart ways to build power? If most of the dollars go to advertising electrons, little is left behind other than lists to rent or sell to the next campaign. Seasonal investments will generate sporadic and inconsistent results.
It’s time to broaden and diversify the strategist ecosystem. Too few vendors and strategists are making multi-billion, multi-cycle decisions while voters continue to drift away from the Party. The results are the results and the stakes have never been higher. Donors and stakeholders need to insist on accountability and performance-based reviews to incentivize better work and better outcomes.
With changes in campaign finance law and enforcement, it is more permissible to coordinate with candidates and committees than at any point in the past 20 years. This means Democrats have license to break down silos and lead some long-overdue conversations about lanes and roles to limit duplication and maximize impact.
To prevent a repeat of 2024, Democrats must define lanes for the communications ecosystem. Who will carry contrast and negative messaging so candidates go high as other entities go low? Set the lanes and hold organizations accountable.
2026 needs to be an accountability moment where stakeholders and funders push for a robust combination of competition, accountability, and innovation to help candidates and committees more effectively engage and connect with the voters needed to win.
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Part X
The Takeaways
While Democrats probably feel confident about the 2026 midterms, the political and election ecosystems are constantly changing and there are still critical gaps to fill. This document has touched on several critical systemic opportunities for Democrats, and time is running out to reform and renew approaches to winning elections.
Here are some near-term actions.
Campaign Fundraising — The federal courts have changed the game in the way political money moves. In 2026, Republicans may outspend Democrats for the first time in eight years, so Democrats need to sharpen the fundraising approach.
On Organizing — The waves of right-wing spending are coming — and organizing will make the difference. In too many campaigns, organizing gets short shrift or late investment. Time is irreplaceable. Invest earlier to scale earlier to identify and turn out supporters earlier.
On Messaging — Information is moving differently and faster than ever, so Democrats must be able to listen at scale and retool voter contact and communications programs to reach voters where they live.
On Spending — Democrats can now raise billions — can those billions be spent in smart ways to build power? If most of the dollars go to advertising electrons, little is left behind other than lists to rent or sell to the next campaign. Seasonal investments will generate sporadic and inconsistent results.
On Positioning and Brand — “Fixing the Democratic brand” may take the election (and re-election) of a Democratic President and Congress. Years of neglect and countless missed opportunities have led to a loss of trust, which is difficult to recover. Democrats must use the tools available to start the process.
National neglect is what led Democrats to this moment — more of the same is not the answer. None of this will be easy, but moving past talk and into action on some or all of these takeaways can make a massive difference in outcomes for the Party and for the country.
It’s time to get to work.
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