Democrats got wiped out in 2004. This is what they did next.

In 2004, life as a Democrat was fairly bleak.

The get together misplaced a presidential election to George W. Bush for a second time. Including insult to damage, Democratic nominee John Kerry misplaced the favored vote. The get together was seemingly dropping floor, after having gained the favored vote in 2000 and dropping the Electoral Faculty thanks solely to an exceedingly shut (and contested) loss in Florida. It was a unique world again then, however Democrats sensed that voters resoundingly had rejected what they needed to supply — even whereas working towards a Republican candidate broadly thought-about susceptible.

In 2024, life as a Democrat is fairly bleak in most of the similar methods it was 20 years in the past. Ballots are nonetheless being counted after the presidential election, however the Democratic presidential nominee is on monitor to lose the favored vote for the primary time in 20 years.

That in style vote loss has compelled a broader reckoning: Profitable the favored vote “acted as a type of salve: Sure, the Electoral Faculty could have delivered Bush and Trump the presidency, however on some degree, their administrations have been illegitimate, unsanctioned by the favored will,” stated Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt College centered on media, conservatism, and the presidency.

With no “however the in style vote” fallback, Democrats are confronting a harsh actuality. “For the primary time since 2004, this election felt like an embrace of conservatism, albeit a a lot completely different type of conservatism than the one related to the 2004 winner,” stated Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the College of Virginia Heart for Politics.

Now, as in 2004, Democrats are partaking in what will be generously considered as introspection (or, much less generously, a “round firing squad”) to chart a brand new course again to energy and assess what went so very improper this time round. The blame for that’s up for debate: It might have been the economic system, Democrats’ embrace of “wokeness,” President Joe Biden’s resolution to run for a second time period, the truth that many People really preferred what Trump was promoting, or any variety of different elements.

Although it might take months for what particularly went improper to grow to be clearer, the 2004 election and its aftermath may present some perception into how Democrats can transfer ahead.

In any case, 4 years after the Bush-Kerry debacle, Democrats gained the 2008 election in a landslide, with Barack Obama beating John McCain by practically 10 million votes and coming into the White Home with large congressional majorities at his again.

What Democrats immediately can be taught from the get together’s loss in 2004

There are apparent variations between 2004 and 2024. The aughts election was dominated by 9/11 and the World Warfare on Terror that adopted. This yr, these subjects barely registered, whereas Trump and Biden’s respective data, the economic system, and the tradition wars took middle stage. Additional, Kerry’s marketing campaign began with successful a really aggressive major, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris took over after Biden stepped apart and gave her his endorsement.

However the vibes amongst Democrats are related, and what they do subsequent could decide whether or not they see a revival within the 2026 midterms and the elections that comply with.

Total, Democrats took three classes from 2004. Whether or not one believes these classes apply to 2024 relies upon, largely, on what one believes went improper for Harris in her loss to Trump. However, given Democrats’ profitable restoration from 2004, it’s a historical past lesson price taking.

1) They pursued a 50-state technique

Following the 2004 loss, a preferred meme rocketed across the (nonetheless considerably nascent) web: a map that depicted the Democratic “United States of Canada” as current alongside the coasts and a Republican “Jesusland” encompassing the overwhelming majority of land within the US.

If that appears reductive and problematic on a number of fronts, you’re not improper, however the map, aforementioned issues apart, served partially as shorthand for mentioning Democrats’ turnout downside. Sure, Kerry had turned out 9 million extra votes than Al Gore had 4 years earlier than, however he nonetheless fell virtually 3 million in need of Bush.

That hole revealed a vulnerability for Democrats: their incapability to mobilize a broad coalition in swing states and past that might translate into an Electoral Faculty victory. Kerry couldn’t summon the type of voter enthusiasm essential to match Bush’s robust efficiency in rural areas and outer suburbs.

To goose turnout, Democrats regarded to Howard Dean, who ran a populist major marketing campaign however misplaced to Kerry.

Elected as chair of the Democratic Nationwide Committee in 2005, Dean grew to become a proponent of a “50-state technique.” The thought behind this technique was that Democrats have to attempt to compete in each state, maximizing turnout in Democratic areas whereas reducing into Republican margins the place potential.

This yr, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, like Dean, believes a part of the answer might be the return of the 50-state technique. They’re not alone: “We can’t run in simply the few states that we want,” stated Claire Potter, a professor emerita of historical past on the New Faculty. “The Democrats have, in some methods, actually backed off that technique, and I feel they’re improper to have achieved so.”

The Harris marketing campaign — for very comprehensible causes — didn’t make the most of Dean’s methodology. With just a few months to marketing campaign, Harris centered on swing states and choose demographic teams. She largely didn’t go to traditionally “protected” Democratic states. Whereas it’s not clear that she might have stanched the bleeding in these locations, there have been important rightward shifts from New York Metropolis to Southern California.

And it’s not clear how effectively the 50-states principle has aged. In any case, Hillary Clinton ran up the favored vote complete after successful large in solidly blue states, however she bought to function president for precisely zero days.

That technique was later credited with serving to Democrats make good points within the 2006 midterms and with serving to to place Obama within the White Home in 2008.

And after 2024, the place Democrats misplaced floor in nearly each county within the US, a plan to spice up the get together’s recognition nationally shouldn’t be one it could afford to disregard.

2) Democrats reevaluated their messaging

In 2004, Democrats didn’t have a response to the rise of the right-wing weblog Drudge Report and Fox Information’s consolidation round Republicans. Kerry was typically forged as an elitist with an costly haircut, and right-wing commentators efficiently turned one in all his strengths as a candidate — his navy service in Vietnam — right into a legal responsibility via viral assault adverts.

“There may be this sort of disingenuous assault on Kerry because the Harvard boy, as any individual who’s faking having actually fought in Vietnam,” Potter stated. “Bush is ready to play the cardboard of being an outsider, although he’s an incumbent, although he went to Yale, although his father was president.”

In response, Democrats sought to reevaluate their total messaging technique. The influential ebook Don’t Consider an Elephant! by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff served as a guidebook for reframing debates in their very own phrases and for explaining their coverage positions by evoking values of empathy, equity, and neighborhood with out adopting the language of conservatives. Additionally they embraced Dean — dubbed by the Washington Put up in 2005 as an “outsider rebel” who wore beat-up footwear and flew coach, spending most of his time exterior of DC.

In 2024, Democrats have been once more outflanked by a brand new Republican media machine — this time, together with the likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to ship their message. Harris, for her half, declined to seem on Rogan’s podcast, reportedly for worry of how it could be perceived throughout the get together.

3) Democrats sought to grow to be a celebration of concepts

Kerry marketing campaign adviser Kenneth Baer stated that, in 2024, Democrats repeated their mistake in 2004 of defining themselves as being the alternative of Republicans.

”Good folks appear to have come round to the thought which you can’t simply say Trump’s horrible,” Baer stated, arguing that Democrats had the identical problem in 2004, when Kerry spent a lot of his time on the marketing campaign path criticizing Bush as an alternative of defining affirmative causes to vote for Democrats. That referred to as for Democrats to “rethink all our insurance policies and our approaches,” Baer stated.

Baer went on to discovered the journal Democracy: A Journal of Concepts as a platform for these concepts. That’s the place Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), then a Harvard Regulation Faculty professor, printed a 2007 manifesto about how monetary merchandise like mortgages and bank cards needs to be regulated by the federal government. That concept would later give rise to the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau.

At present, some Democrats say the get together nonetheless wants to raised join with the working class, however Baer famous that there’s disagreement about what which means and whether or not that ought to contain an financial or cultural method.

The bounds of political technique

Democrats would very very similar to a silver-bullet technique that ensures them a post-2004-esque restoration. However the fact is, political technique and planning can solely go to this point. And which may be one of many largest classes from 20 years in the past.

The get together’s return to energy in 2008 was principally pushed by two elements: Obama was a generationally politically gifted politician. George W. Bush was a generationally horrible president whose second time period featured a bungled and lethal response to Hurricane Katrina; an much more disastrous and lethal dealing with of the Iraq Warfare (the false pretenses of which got here totally to mild throughout Bush’s second time period); and the 2008 monetary disaster and ensuing financial meltdown.

“The situations that might collapse Bush’s help in his second time period have been already in place when he gained reelection,” Hemmer, the political historian, stated.

So how Democrats do in 2026, 2028, and past will seemingly have so much to do with Trump’s efficiency throughout his second time period.

At present, preliminary exit polls counsel Trump is unpopular, his proposed tariffs might be disastrous for the economic system, Democrats could mobilize towards his insurance policies as they did in his first time period, and he could solely have a really slim Home majority to work with, doubtlessly hampering his agenda.

If such a collapse occurs, nevertheless, Democrats additionally need to be ready to grab on it.