Tuesday brought a lot of bad news for Democrats and the Democratic Party.  It was not, however, a disaster.  For the sixth time in the past seven elections, our candidate won the popular vote for President.  (However, for the second time in the past five elections, we lost the electoral college while winning the popular vote.)  We gained two Senate seats and come close in several others.  A slim Republican majority in the Senate will hinder the ability of the Republicans to go as far as some in the Republican party would like.  We gained approximately five seats in the House.  While the Senate map is favorable for Republicans in terms of the location of races, mid-term elections generally favor the party out of power.  (The supporters of the new administration tend to be disappointed by the failure to get more done while the opponents are outraged by what has been done.)  In other words, while the party does have to think about its agenda for 2018 and 2020, we are in a slightly better position than Republicans were after the 2008 elections.

First, the big issue facing our party is geographic.  By the time that this post, I will have attended the biennial meeting of  the Democratic committee for my state senate district.  Sixteen years ago, a Democrat held this seat.  Republicans have now won this seat in four straight elections.  There are fewer and fewer rural districts (both at the state level and at the national level) in which Democratic candidates are competitive.  Unfortunately, this feeds into a vicious cycle that came to bite us on Tuesday.  With few Democrats representing rural districts, there a fewer voices discussing the issues that are unique to rural America.  The Republicans have no desire to discuss these issues.  Trying to solve the unique problems of rural America would cost money which would interfere with the ability to cut taxes.  Instead, the Republicans are happy to promise rural voters that the Republican platform will magically make America great again and return economic vitality to the small towns that are slowly declining.  If the Democratic Party does not present an agenda that works for small towns, the Republicans win by stirring the pot about “values.”  Democratic candidates won big — not big enough, but still by substantial margins — in the cities.  The Republicans won the election by running up the margin in rural areas.

In addition to finding a message that will allow us to win back some rural votes, we need to spend time rebuilding the party in rural areas.  The Democratic Party has spent a lot of time in finding and identifying and connecting with potential voters in urban areas and the inner suburbs.  Canvassing the vote is much easier in densely populated areas.  When voters are spread out, the process is much harder.  From a financial sense, the focus on urban voters makes sense, but there is a point of diminishing returns.

Second, we do need to look at our nominating process.  While the party does not have a lot of control over the calendar (that decision is mostly made by state legislatures that we do not control), we need to look at ways to increase the voice of the voters (which to some degree means lessening the power of the party elite).  I do not think that the structure of the primary made any difference to the results of the nominating process, but the role of the elites in this cycle did have some impact on party unity which might have cost us votes to a third party candidate.  (One of the problems that changes will not be able to fix is that primary voters are different than general election voters.  We vote based on what matters to us not realizing that the swing voter in swing states may perceive things differently.)  There is time to talk about the 2020 nominating process in the months ahead, and I am sure that several of the contributors will have ideas that they will float.

Third, there are advantages and disadvantages to being the opposition party.  As a political party, you want to be in power because you have problems that you want to solve and plans that you want to implement.  However, it is difficult to hold your coalition together when you are in power.  One part of the party will always want to take things step-by-step, making sure that the first step works before taking the next step.  Another part will want to take giant strides at once, knowing that the time in power is fleeting.  The need to work together will frustrate both sides — with some marginal supporters seeing a need to support the opposition party in an effort to put a brake on things going too far, too fast, and other marginal supporters going to third parties who promise even faster progress.  Over time, the opposition gains enough of the marginal supporters to retake control.

As noted above, the Democratic Party did well enough to have tools to put pressure on the Republican Party.  A 52-48 margin in the Senate does not give the Republicans much room for pushing full steam ahead.  At the very least, Democratic Senators can make Republicans take tough votes on individual parts of the Republican Party’s proposals.  We will be able to stop some of the more insane ideas that we have seen in this campaign and sharply outline why voters who sat out this election or voted Libertarian or Green need to come home to the Democratic Party.

There is a lot that can be said about the 2016 election, but the key thing is that it puts the Republican Party in a difficult position.  Trump was elected out of a distaste for the status quo, not out of support for any specific policy proposals.  That leaves him with very little room for error.  Democrats can win in 2018 and 2020.  We just need to figure out a plan for doing so.  That plan must identify where we have fallen short in this cycle and remedy those shortcomings.