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Democrats claim that they are looking for candidates to fix their electoral losses following Donald Trump’s victory. The data shows that Democrats lost ground among young men, urban communities of color, and among voters who cared about affordability issues. Much of the Democratic Party’s leadership is so old that three Democratic Congressional Caucus members died while still in office in 2025, allowing for Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” to pass the House. Currently, in the New York City mayor’s race, the current front-runners are Zohran Mamdani (a 33-year-old democratic socialist State Assemblymember) and Andrew Cuomo (a 67-year-old scandal-plagued former governor pushing fearmongering anti-crime rhetoric that repeats right-wing talking points about New York City). The Democratic leadership class’s consolidation of support for Cuomo, including many who called for his resignation in 2021, shows that they are continuing to pursue the sort of poll-driven, consultant-class strategy that has previously doomed the Democratic Party to defeats.
Following the 2024 general election, pundits and commentators began a circular firing squad to find the problems in the Democratic Party’s electoral strategy. The dominant narrative that seemed to emerge among a set of establishment-aligned Democrats was that Trump won the national election because the party had shifted too far to the left. New York Congressman Ritchie Torres blamed the “far left” and its ivory tower. Mayoral incumbents associated with criminal justice reforms were ousted by moderate challengers in San Francisco and Portland, who claimed that crime and homelessness had ruined cities. Even left-liberal publications like The Nation argued that “blanket progressive appeals to an ideological diverse base” might not be effective to turn out the Democratic base. A February 2025 Gallup survey found that of the Democrats polled, 45 percent wanted the party to become “more moderate” and only 29 percent more liberal; in 2021, only 34 percent wanted the party to become more moderate, while 34 percent wanted the party to become more liberal. The Democratic Party, pundits declared, was out of touch with an increasingly conservative general public, and especially with young people.
Even though there was electoral evidence that the country had not swung fully toward the right, this narrative has held a powerful grip on Democratic strategy. Democratic strategist James Carville suggested that Democrats should let the Trump administration destroy the federal government. “Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us,” Carville wrote in The New York Times in February, calling for the party to not act until Trump’s approval ratings dropped — a move that Carville called a “tactical pause.” Fearful Democratic leadership, such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has largely capitulated to Trump’s demands; Schumer himself supported a spending bill in March to avoid a government shutdown, and then attempted to evade the liberal backlash that followed to protect his own political position. A May article in The New York Times reported that Democratic Party leadership felt lost and confused about the erosion in their historic social and geographic basis of support, as they dealt with a historically low approval rating of 27 percent among registered voters.
But the Democratic Party leadership, especially elected leaders in Congress, continue to flounder and refuse to act as a unified opposition party. Following the June protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in downtown Los Angeles, 75 House Democrats voted with Republicans on a resolution to show gratitude to ICE. Eleven House Democrats later voted to overturn Washington, D.C.’s status as a sanctuary city and demand that D.C. police collaborate with ICE over the wishes of their city council. These moves come despite polling data that shows Democratic voters prefer that the party fight rather than compromise; 65 percent of Democrats want Congress to hold the line against Republicans on key issues, even if it leads to gridlock in D.C. — a reversal from 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term, when 59 percent of Democrats wanted their leadership to compromise with the Trump administration.
Democrats are floundering, and they continue to lack imagination on how to move forward. An example of this can be seen in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Hochul, who won by a narrow margin over MAGA Republican candidate Lee Zeldin in 2022, has followed polls and tacked to the center in an attempt to deal with falling approval rates and credible challenges from Republicans like Rep. Elise Stefanik or Rep. Mike Lawler in the upcoming 2026 general election.
After polls showed Republicans taking advantage of narratives around “crime waves,” Hochul chose to heavily focus her 2025 executive budget on rolling back reforms to the criminal legal system. New York’s state constitution mandates that the state’s budget be passed by April 1. However, this deadline came and went because Hochul could not get buy in from the Democratic-majority State Senate and Assembly chambers, largely over her proposed rollbacks to criminal legal reforms, which included weakening discovery reform, criminalizing the use of masks in public spaces to discourage protest, and giving police greater latitude to involuntarily commit people. The final budget compromised on some of Hochul’s goals, allowing only some rollbacks to discovery reform, a very limited mask criminalization, and some greater discretion on involuntary psychological commitment. Despite these changes, Stefanik still slammed Hochul’s budget for failing to address New York’s “out of control crime.”
Yet all this conservative, reactionary poll-following is not doing Democrats favors. Governor Hochul’s approval ratings remained low in May following the budget fight, rather than seeing an increase. A Siena College poll in late May, for example, found most New Yorkers would prefer to support another candidate over Hochul in 2026. Instead of solidifying her support among Democrats and independents concerned about crime, Hochul seems to have alienated some of her base.
However, another story about polls has emerged in the New York City mayoral race. New York City, with a primary election for mayoral candidates scheduled for June 24, has two front-runner candidates: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace in 2021 after a spate of sexual harassment allegations, is running on his past record as governor and accusing his opponents of moving too far to the left on crime. (Incidentally, during his tenure as governor, Cuomo signed into law a handful of reforms to the criminal legal system, such as ending cash bail, police transparency reform, and discovery reform.) In contrast, Cuomo’s run for mayor has been very heavy on law and order language, as he pledges to “fix” the subways (which he characterized as unsafe and full of homeless people) and hire many more police.
This appeal to the right makes a lot of sense if candidates seek to follow polls. In February, just before Cuomo announced his candidacy, the Manhattan Institute polled likely voters to rank their top issues. Forty-nine percent of respondents ranked crime as their first concern, followed by housing costs (29 percent), closely followed by jobs and economy (28 percent). While more Republicans (65 percent) chose crime than Democrats, crime was still a top issue for 47 percent of poll respondents.
But Mamdani has taken a different path towards his candidacy. While addressing public safety concerns with a public safety plan that would expand violence interrupter and mental health programs, Mamdani has stayed focused on a message of an affordable New York, emphasizing his plan for free buses, free child care, and rent freezes. Combined with slick television ads and a noteworthy social media machine, the campaign has had a wide reach throughout the five boroughs. With a field-oriented campaign and strong public-financed fundraising, Mamdani’s campaign has created new priorities among New Yorkers, rather than reacting to them. In a recent poll from May, Emerson College found that key issues had shifted. Now, 30 percent of New Yorkers prioritized housing, as opposed to 19 percent who prioritized crime. In a Data for Progress poll released in early June, similar shifts had occurred, with 28 percent of respondents prioritizing housing, and 18 percent listing crime as their topline issue.
While the New York City mayoral race may have some unique conditions, the rapid shift in priorities among voters demonstrates that leaders have the ability to shape what voters care about. For example, Democrats do not need to follow polls when reacting to the brutality committed by ICE officers. Democrats have many resources, including earned media and other platforms, to create their own narrative condemning these practices and joining the thousands of Americans protesting ICE raids. Voters do not have fixed preferences but rather make their decisions about their key issues based on a variety of sources, such as political television ads, earned media, official statements from elected officials, friends and family, and social media. Democrats do not have to follow the polls to resist Trump or gain electoral victories, but rather need a clear, progressive vision and message that speaks to the affordability issues that so many Americans face today. Only by engaging in brave leadership and helping to lead voters’ preferences, not follow them, can we expect changes in this most challenging period of American politics.
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