After midterm sweep, Democrats split over Trump and the cost-cutting agenda
Photo: Mark Makela / Getty ImagesFresh from a midterm election landslide, Democrats met in Denver this week united in wanting to deliver voters relief from high costs — but split over how to achieve that, what lessons to draw from their victory, and how combative they should be toward President Donald Trump.
Despite the celebratory mood after the November 3 rout of Republicans, tensions between moderates and a restive progressive wing surfaced at the party's first major gathering since its victory, along with anxiety that the party could squander the opportunity voters had handed it.
The two-day "What's Next" conference, hosted by Majority Democrats, a group that advocates for younger party leaders and against left-wing activism, offered an early glimpse of the battle to define the party's future as prospective 2028 presidential candidates and senior leaders debated how to turn electoral success into a governing agenda while navigating long-standing ideological and generational divides.
Speakers disagreed over whether to embrace a bolder progressive agenda or tack toward the center, exposing competing approaches to lowering food, healthcare and housing costs — while working alongside Trump, who retains veto power for two more years.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive and potential presidential candidate, urged Democrats to stop chasing the political center and embrace a bolder agenda, including universal healthcare, a wealth tax, a $25 federal minimum wage, deep Pentagon cuts and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
By contrast, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a moderate and another potential 2028 contender, argued the party should move beyond ideological litmus tests, saying voters "don't give a damn" about such debates and care instead about whether Democrats can deliver results.
"It's to be expected that there will be a big debate because the Democratic victory was so broad it swept in centrists, southern Democrats and more progressive and left-wing Democrats," Democratic strategist Elaine Kamarck told Reuters.
One of the most striking debates in Denver centered on how to govern with Trump still in the White House. James Talarico, the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since 1988, urged Democrats to work with Trump.
"We should make the final two years of his presidency the most productive of any presidency in American history," Talarico said, drawing tepid applause. "We're tired of being pitted against each other."
He found an ally in Iowa Gov.-elect Rob Sand, who said he encouraged Democrats at campaign events to applaud Republicans and that partisan warfare will not deliver results.
"The only way we're going to fix that is by fixing it together," Sand said.
Minutes later, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Eric Holder, who was attorney general in the Obama administration, largely rejected accommodation with Trump. Raskin, expected to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January and oversee investigations of Trump next year, said the Republican Party had become an authoritarian cult of personality.
"We're going to reassert all of the powers of Congress that have been surrendered and abdicated by the MAGA Congress to King Trump," Raskin said. "We're going to enforce the Constitution against him."
Holder warned Democrats against pursuing bipartisanship. "If we retreat into caution, if we operate out of fear, if we take refuge in the niceties of the old Washington and seek approval from those who have been and are actively dismantling our institutions, we will fail."
Some Democrats are pitching a novel way to get Trump to sign their agenda: let him put his name on it. Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan has proposed "TrumpCare," a golden insurance card providing universal healthcare, dangling the president's name on the ambitious Democratic plan. Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said she agreed with the sentiment behind the approach, and Talarico has suggested Trump could become a man of history like Lyndon B. Johnson, who was seen as a master of congressional dealmaking.
Trump himself has said he doesn't want to spend the final two years of his presidency simply vetoing bills from the Democrats in control of Congress, and reiterated Thursday he is willing to work with them. "I'm going to be vetoing a lot of things that they're going to send me initially that are bad for the country, and I think eventually they're going to call in, they're going to say, 'Let's make a deal,'" the president said in an interview.
Almost everyone who spoke at the conference agreed the party's top priority was lowering costs and improving life for working families. It was a theme echoed by New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, set to become U.S. House speaker, and several prospective 2028 presidential candidates, including Shapiro, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Khanna. Jeffries, a moderate, was heckled by a group of protesters who accused him of being too timid to deliver change and called for a House leader who embraced a more populist progressive agenda.
Jeffries told the audience he has plans to deliver, with a robust agenda that includes reversing Medicaid cuts, banning congressional stock trading and mid-decade redistricting, establishing a statutory right to abortion, and overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that did away with limits on political spending by corporations and unions.
There was a collective anxiety among the speakers that the party might squander one of the biggest victories it has achieved in a generation. Many speakers described the win not as an enduring mandate, but rather a temporary opportunity voters had given them to fix the country's problems.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, another potential presidential contender, noted that many Hispanic voters who voted for Trump in 2024 backed Democrats this month.
"It was not, though, a love letter to the Democratic Party," Gallego said. "It is a short-term loan that we need to keep paying, or we will lose it."
Trump retains significant executive authority to block much of the Democrats' agenda, complicating the party's efforts to lower costs, the central issue voters gave Democrats control of Congress to fix. Democrats are projected to hold at least 255 seats to Republicans' 169 in the U.S. House, with 12 contests still undecided. In the Senate, the breakdown will be at least 55-44, with Democrats possibly gaining one more seat in Alaska when vote-counting is completed.
Sources: Reuters, "After midterm sweep, Democrats split over Trump, cost-cutting agenda" by Tim Reid (Nov. 14, 2026, full text verified); Delmarva Public Media (NPR), "'We can't let them down' — After midterm wins, Democrats turn to charting path ahead" (Nov. 14, 2026, full text verified); Associated Press, "'TrumpCare' and commemorative plaques — how Democrats are pitching dealmaking with the president" by Jonathan J. Cooper and Lisa Mascaro (Nov. 14, 2026). Event date verified: November 12–13, 2026 ("What's Next" conference, Denver); Reuters report published November 14, 2026.
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