Where Do Democrats Go From Here?
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 17 Nov, 2025

Between Mamdani's win in the NYC’s mayoral election and the eight senators who voted to end the shutdown a week later, the Democratic party is in a full-scale leadership tug of war.

On Tuesday November 4 for what genuinely felt like the first time since President Trump was re-elected a year ago, the Democratic Party was winning.



Democrat Abigail Spanberger flipped the Virginia Governorship from red to blue on Nov. 4

In their first major electoral test of the Trump Presidency, Democrats:

Won an open gubernatorial race in New Jersey.

Flipped Virginia’s offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General from red to blue while doubling their majority in the state house.

Held all three state Supreme Court seats that were up for grabs in Pennsylvania.

Won non-federal statewide races in Georgia for the first time in 19 years

And of course won the New York Mayor’s race while setting an all time record for voter turnout. 

Victory. Momentum. Party Unity.  These were the words we began hearing nonstop after Election Day.

Yes, following the November 2025 elections, seemingly nothing could stop the Democrats.

Except, well, the Democrats. 

The Shutdown

On Sunday November 9 news broke that after months of holding the line, eight Democratic senators were breaking ranks with the rest of their party to end the Government shutdown, which had become the longest in history.

It is not uncommon for the Democrats to find themselves in a tug of war between the progressive wing of the party and the moderates.  But such an explanation would fail to accurately depict the factors at play that Sunday.

While it’s true that none of the eight defectors are from the progressive wing, it’s also true that many of the Senate Democrats who we have come to view as moderates were not among the eight. 

Centrists like Chris Coons from Delaware, John Hickenlooper from Colorado, and Mark Warner from Virginia all held the line alongside Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Chuck Schumer notably did not vote to end the shutdown which can be interpreted in one of two ways, neither of which is good for him:

1) He was gave the eight members of his caucus permission to support the bill, which is of course more impactful than he himself supporting it.

2) He was genuinely opposed to ending the shutdown and the eight members of his caucus disobeyed him, calling his leadership abilities into question. 

Notably, it feels like the Democratic electorate is more united here than party leadership. Few Democrats seem to be applauding the eight who caved.  Rather, there appears to be a rare consensus among the diverse, big tent Democratic base that caving to Republicans was the wrong move.

A poll taken this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81% of Democrats opposed ending the shutdown if it meant accepting a deal that would not guarantee the extension of Obamacare subsidies, the main demand that sparked this thing in the first place.

The Democrats who voted to end the shutdown surely understood the unpopularity of their move. They did so knowing that not one of the them will have to face voters anytime soon. Of the eight: two are retiring and the others aren't up for re-election until 2028 or 2030.

Those on the ballot in the near future, like Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, are the people you might have expected to take the more centrist position here in an effort to appeal to a rightward-leaning base.  Yet, he held the line. 

Mind you that the Democrats' November 4 electoral sweep occurred in the midst of the shutdown, implying that holding out was in fact helpful to the party politically.

What we don’t know is where the Democrats will go from here.  But as I see it, there are the two possible paths forward as we hurtle towards the 2026 midterm elections.

Stay the Course 

President Trump and Congressional Republicans may be so deeply unpopular that Democrats can simply run on a “we’re not them” strategy and win.

As a rule of thumb, when one party holds the Presidency, the other party has the advantage in off-year elections.  This might be all the more so given that Republicans hold both the House and Senate.  Despite Republicans referring to it as the “Schumer shutdown” there was little doubt about who actually controls the levers of power right now. 

It’s also worth noting that it has been some time since Republicans did well in any election in which Trump was not personally on the ballot.  

While Trump won in 2016 and 2024 and only lost by approximately 100,000 total votes across five swing states in 2024, Republicans have generally underperformed in non-presidential elections in that time including the 2018 and 2022 midterms. 

In other words, despite heavy turmoil surrounding party leadership, Democratic leaders may very well decide that defense is the best offense; that the path of least resistance — continuing with a strategy that includes only a half-hearted opposition to Trump — may very well be enough to coast by.

What would maintaining the status quo look like from an electoral perspective?

Schumer will not be up for re-election as party leader until after the midterms so it is not a decision that would need to be made ahead of them.

However, Schumer may still make it clear that he has no intention of stepping aside, which will inevitably require both candidates and elected officials of the party to outwardly state whether or not they will support him continuing as party leader. 

Shake Up

I would also not be surprised to see something of a full-scale revolt. 

For years now Democratic leaders have echoed some version of the mantra “vote blue no matter who.”  It’s the idea that even if progressives were upset that, say, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were the nominees rather than Bernie Sanders, voting for the Democrats would still help them accomplish at least some of their goals, whereas the alternative is none of them should the Republicans win. 

And to their credit, most progressives have. Approximately 90% of Sanders’ 2016 primary supporters ultimately backed Clinton in the general election.

But it now seems that when the shoe is on the other foot, the Democratic establishment is not practicing what they preach. When progressive firebrand Zohran Mamdani secured the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York, Schumer, the state’s senior senator, refused to endorse Mamdani or even say publicly who he was voting for.

Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents part of New York City, ultimately issued a tepid endorsement just weeks before the election, following months of refusing to weigh in on the race.

And this was all, of course, before Schumer drew ire for Democrats' on the shutdown.

Schumer’s unwillingness to endorse now appears to be more harmful to the Senator than to the Mayor-elect.  Mamdani’s victory proved to the party that progressives can win without the help of old guard leadership, thus rendering said leaders irrelevant. 

What would this look like in practicality? 

For one, supporting progressive candidates who might be further outside the mainstream than party leadership typically enlists to run for office.

A similar strategy backfired on Republicans in 2010 and 2012 at the height of the tea party.  A number of far right candidates successfully primaried older more moderate senators only to then lose winnable races to Democrats in states like Nevada, Delaware, Missouri, and Indiana.

 For as much of a boon to progressives as Mamdani’s victory was, it is entirely possible that his candidacy was tailor made for a city like New York, and that attempts to run similarly progressive candidates in less liberal cities would prove a losing strategy.

Beyond Elections

What has been left unsaid in much of the electoral strategy is the actual governing aspect.

These two debates: How to win and how to govern, are effectively a matter of short term versus long term.

Yes, the “stay the course strategy” may work well in 2026 but, in the long run, fuel the belief that there is little difference between the two parties and deny Democrats the opportunity to separate themselves from the Republicans,

Conversely, while running more progressive candidates may, in some ways, feel like a heavier lift right now, the ability for Democrats to actually implement sweeping long-term change could prove popular in the long-run.

Take the Affordable Care Act, for example:  The passage of Obamacare directly led to the biggest electoral repudiation of House Democrats in a generation.  But now 15 years later, as evidenced by public support for the extended tax credits that the shutdown was based on, Obamacare is extremely popular.

In hindsight, opposing the bill during its passage for fear of electoral repercussions would have proven short-sighted. 

One must also ask what the point of winning an election is if not to implement policy that you believe in.  

With conversation already happening both out in public and behind the closed doors of the US Capitol, we likely won't have to wait until November 2026 to get a sense of what, in fact, the Democratic party believes in.