The lessons US Democrats are - or aren't - learning after Donald Trump's election victory

Democrats struggling with how to move forward and understanding what went wrong

The election results are providing a moment of reflection for Democratic activists, organisers and insiders. AP

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The 2024 election results represent a sea change in America: Donald Trump won the necessary electoral votes for a second term in office, but for the first time, he also clinched the popular vote, and his Republican Party flipped the Senate from Democratic control.

It is a moment of reflection for Democratic activists, organisers and insiders like Alyssa Batchelor-Causey, who was very surprised by Tuesday night's results.

“[Kamala] Harris had the best messaging that we've had … She had policies that resonated with people. She had everything moving in the right direction that I wanted to see from the Democratic Party for a very long time,” the strategist with Hill and State Strategies told The National.

Clearly, though, the Democratic ticket did not craft a message that resonated enough to deliver victories, with losses among key constituencies the party had expected to have resounding support from: including white women and Latino men.

Many are saying the Harris campaign missed the mark and that 2024 showed Democrats have not learnt the lessons of Hillary Clinton's shock loss to Mr Trump in 2016.

Kati Durken, the vice president of Young Democrats for America, says that her party has “a messaging issue”.

“We have not connected with people, I think we've missed some key areas that young voters feel really passionate about,” she told The National.

“A lot of young people walked away with the idea that nobody was really going to fix their problems so why does it matter. That general existential dread about the world did a lot of damage.”

The Republican president-elect made gains with voters aged 18 to 29, up 7 percentage points from 2020, Reuters reported.

Young and progressive voters, in particular, feel angered, accusing the party of ignoring their policy demands and instead catering towards centrist Republicans they believed could be swayed to vote against Mr Trump.

That includes the failure to concretely demand and deliver a ceasefire in Gaza, an insistence on celebrating President Joe Biden's economy against growing financial frustration, and the embrace of figures like Republican former vice president Dick Cheney, an architect of America's war in Iraq.

Kamala Harris concedes after losing US election to Donald Trump

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Gabe Inman, a progressive in Virginia who “thought up until the last moment” that he would vote Democrat and ended up voting third party for Cornel West, seems to agree with that assessment.

“The last 12 years [Democrats have] been trying to play ball with moderate Republicans and its gone nowhere,” he told The National.

“I think the biggest takeaway is that this is America showing itself for what it is and we have hundreds of millions of people so apathetic about their futures.”

Ultimately for Mr Inman, the party “not caring at all” about Palestinians played a major role in his decision to vote third party, and he hopes 2024 represents a wake-up call for the Democrats.

But many Democrats, including pro-Israel Congressman Ritchie Torres, point their fingers at progressives, for whom he said there is “no greater friend” to Mr Trump.

Those remarks stoke the notion for progressives like Mr Inman that Democrats are not genuinely concerned about these movements.

“The people I've seen say, 'If you're a Latino and voted Trump I hope ICE gets you.' I think it's insane that we can look at someone and say I want the fascism to happen to you directly and absolve all blame from the politicians themselves in this election,” he said.

There's a balance to that for Democratic organisers in the Latin and Hispanic-American community, too, who saw increasing members of their community opt for Mr Trump.

Donald Trump and congressional candidate Mayra Flores participate in a roundtable in north Las Vegas, Nevada. Getty Images / AFP

Support for Mr Trump among Hispanic voters went up 14 percentage points from 2020, according to an Edison Research exit poll.

Bruna Sollod, an organiser with immigration advocacy group United We Dream, says moving forward, there needs to be better outreach and understanding of these voters.

“How do we show up for the people that are scared and lost and voted for Trump? Those people are still important,” she told The National.

“There's a lot of work to be done with voters in our own communities and having tough conversations with them, and I think those are lessons to be taken and to try different things.”

For Ms Batchelor-Causey, all this demonstrates the age-old Democratic Party conundrum: galvanising an enthusiastic coalition is “something very difficult to do in a big tent party”.

Democrats like Mr Torres also disagree with the notion that his party had a “messaging issue”, and instead says there's a “reality problem”.

“Inflation and immigration are not 'messaging problems.' These are realities that produced discontent widespread enough to hand Donald Trump the presidency,” he posted on X.

Ms Durken said there's truth in that assessment, but blames Mr Trump for the economic struggles facing many Americans.

“Economic impacts span years, the direct impact of the Trump economy is still being felt in our economy … I think that Democrats over the next few years are going to have the opportunity to show Donald Trump doesn't care about you, he has no interest in fixing the economy for you,” she said.

There are process concerns, too, after a historic cycle where President Joe Biden stepped aside from leading the ticket months away from the election, and the elevation of his Vice President without an open primary.

Ms Batchelor-Causey played down the notion that this had a major role in the outcome, saying that argument is “very far fetched, that is a Maga Republican mind”.

“The last thing that I wanted and knew would be a fatal nail in the coffin would be to go to some sort of open primary convention-type situation that would have been an absolute disaster,” she said.

But that did have an impact on would-be Democratic voter Mr Inman.

“To just say it's Biden but then after a disaster of a debate say, wait, never mind, trust us this time, it's Harris, was incredibly tone deaf,” he said.

In the weeks to come, Democrats settling into the reality of a swift and strong Republican mandate at the helm, say harm reduction will be the name of the game.

“Preparing, preparing, preparing – informing constituents. If you are an elected representative, state, local, federal, it doesn't matter. You need to be talking to your constituents about what is to come,” said Ms Batchelor-Causey.

There's also an urgency to “push” the lame-duck Biden administration to help immigrant communities, adds Ms Sollod, although she concedes with Mr Trump weeks away from the Oval Office, it will be difficult to ensure lasting protections.

It is also increasingly possible that Mr Trump will enter the White House with a “trifecta” government – a fully Republican Congress, in addition to a conservative-majority Supreme Court.

For Democrats, that means “there will be very little that they can do to stop” a Trump agenda, said Ms Batchelor-Causey.

Ms Durken said the party needs to ramp-up it's down-ballot investments, as it “readjusts to a chaotic political life again”.

“Supporting our local and smaller government institutions so that as they pass policies and achieve progressive goals, those can't be undone by the federal government, so that they feel safe and unthreatened in doing so. If it's not a top priority, we are going to be failing the people that are doing the work to keep us safe right now,” she said.

The hope for Ms Sollod, as an immigrant that experienced the first Trump presidency, is that she knows first-hand the grass roots mobilisation these moments can inspire.

“I came to this movement after the 2016 election. I became a member of United We Dream that very night … So, I know that those are things that are going to happen over the next few days and months, and that we're going to be seeing a lot of new membership and a lot of new leadership,” she said.