Even with a win in November, Democrats need to expand the map

That means delivering once they’re in power, and planning needs to start now

(A month ago I wrote a post explaining why Dream.Org would be making its first presidential endorsement in support of Vice President Harris.)

Being in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention was exhilarating. The raucous energy inside and outside the United Center was spurred by a newfound hope that Democrats had the momentum and a big November win in their sights. As an advocate, though, winning is defined by bringing real change to communities. Elections still matter, because we have strong preferences on who will be better partners to achieve our goals. But the path to victory begins in earnest the day after the election. 

Midway through Convention week, my Dream.Org team hosted ‘A Vision for the Future,’ a breakfast roundtable with dynamic partners like NextGen, the Brennan Center, and Color of Change. For two hours, a dynamic roster of  young leaders filled the stage, including Hon. Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. Maxwell Frost, for vigorous conversations about how to message and organize around criminal justice reform, climate change, and the future impact of technology on communities. 

Our breakfast event was an outlier; at a convention that achieved its primary goals, unifying and energizing the party, one of its few critiques was that the four days of speeches offered little substance on what the next four years will look like. The main retort to that critique has been that getting in the muck on policy has little electoral advantage, and that’s probably true on some issues–like climate change–that are important to the party base and not to swing voters. But that implies that there is some secret policy execution plan locked away to break open in January 2025, and I just don’t find that credible coming from a party leadership whose plan a mere five weeks ago was to run Joe Biden for re-election. 

Reflecting on what comes next, I’m struck by the intertwined relationship between the Democrats’ narrow paths to electoral victory and advocates’ narrow windows of opportunity to win the transformative changes we need through legislative and administrative federal policy. Unless Democrats can expand the map, we will be forever stuck in a loop where nothing gets done, and every election feels existential. In my view, the only way to expand the map is to demonstrate to a broader set of Americans that progressive policies will better their lives, quickly. That means if we win this November, we really have to get the governance right. 

Both the future Harris-Walz administration and the advocacy community need a game plan for how to govern in 2025. Our communities desperately need the help and future electoral success will depend on a strong strategy at the forefront. Because of the unusual circumstances propelling her candidacy, VP Kamala Harris is running an opposition campaign, able to borrow from some of the Biden administration’s successes without accountability for its failures, and making the campaign a referendum on defeating Trumpism. That’s very helpful for November, but it will not give her any additional latitude come January. 

The rest of my analysis will be predicated upon the assumption that Harris wins the presidency, Jon Tester and the other targeted Democrats hold on to their Senate seats, and House Democrats grab the four seats they need to give the party a new trifecta. The odds of this were negligible a few weeks ago; today I’d put it just short of a coin flip. Any other scenario and we’re staring down another two years of gridlock at best, which will render most serious federal policy conversation lamentably moot. 

A game plan for the Presidency: How not to squander a trifecta

Since LBJ’s Great Society, no Democratic president has been able to deliver a sweeping domestic policy agenda, and the electoral outcomes show it. The last three Democratic presidents squandered two-year trifectas at the start of their terms and never got full majorities back. The Clinton administration struggled with  a failed healthcare proposal and series of scandals. Obama passed healthcare–which wouldn’t take effect for years–and a few other bills, but did little to deal with the pain and anger voters felt after the financial crisis. As for the Biden administration, its biggest achievements were on spending projects with very long-term timelines, such as infrastructure, clean energy investments, and semiconductor factories. The Harris administration needs to heed these lessons by hitting the ground running and initiating reforms that tangibly make peoples’ lives better immediately. 

Everyone knows of the Electoral College’s bias, twice delivering the presidency to Republicans who lost the popular vote, but recent research shows that landscape is only getting worse. If population trends continue, by 2032 a “Blue Wall” Democratic performance (safe Dem states + MI/PA/WI) would yield only 256 electoral votes, requiring additional Sun Belt wins as a baseline for winning the presidency. Democrats desperately need to expand the presidential map to be competitive into the 2030s, and the only way to do that is by delivering results over the next few years that expand the map and make Democratic candidates welcome in places they’ve been getting trounced the last few decades. 

A game plan for the Senate: Filibuster or bust

Speaking of structural disadvantages, there’s only more bad news coming from the Senate. By my math, there are at least 23 states that absent ticket-splitters like Jon Tester and Joe Machin, would reliably vote Republican. (Compared to 19 such Democratic states.) That’s a baseline of 46 Republican Senators, meaning that Democrats are looking at a ceiling of only 54. Only ticket-splitting and the ineptitude of Republican Senate candidates have allowed Democrats to hang even in the Senate for the last few cycles. Anyone doubting these numbers need only look at the current cycle, where the Democratic high-water mark is 50 seats, the minimum possible for a Senate majority. In 2026, Democrats have two pick-up opportunities (Maine & North Carolina) while they defend Georgia, for a high-water mark of 52. There are no more “good Senate cycles” for Democrats sans map expansion. And you can’t expand the map without delivering for people in such a way that new groups of voters look at the party differently. 

In order to deliver, Senate Democrats absolutely must get rid of the filibuster. Anything else would betray a lack of seriousness in the promises we heard from the stage in Chicago. How are you going to codify Roe without ending the filibuster, or any of the other issues that would get jammed in the culture war blender? I learned the hard way, working on the EQUAL Act, that in today’s Senate, even having 60 bipartisan votes is not enough to get a bill through; there are simply too many check-points to throttle legislation under the current rules. But voters aren’t going to want to hear that excuse come November 2026. 

A game plan for the House: Move quick, get stuff done

Now that the dust has settled on the many state gerrymandered lines, there are fewer swing seats in the House than ever before, meaning both Democrats and Republicans are operating with a high floor / low ceiling. Where this gets tricky for a Democrats majority is that they can ill afford to lose but a handful of members on any vote – such as energy policy bills that require support from oil and gas state Dems, for example. If moderate Democrats are running afraid of the Democratic brand by the ‘26 midterms, as so often happens, legislation will ground to a halt by mid to late 2025, closing another window of opportunity. That’s why Democrats need to pass a spate of compelling legislation out of the gate that is designed to excite people in these districts and expand the map. 

A game plan for the courts: Don’t lead with court-packing

There are several immediate improvements Democrats could make to the federal court system. Congress has the power to create more federal judgeships, and there is currently a bill with bipartisan support to do that. I’m sure Republican support would crater in the event of a Democratic trifecta, but their current support could be used to make the case that these are common sense reforms for an overworked federal bench. Likewise, Democrats should ram through a Supreme Court ethics bill. Structural changes to the Supreme Court will be a tougher slog. The fact that the GOAT American politician, FDR, suffered his worst political defeat over court-packing is intimidating, and all the more reason it should be an issue timed for the summer of 2025, after another round of horrible Supreme Court decisions rile people up. 

Advocates need to start game planning now 

The time to start strategizing was yesterday. That may feel wrong when there is still an election to win, but there’s no other choice. And frankly, unless you are literally a campaign staffer for the 2024 election cycle, you likely have capacity to think ahead too. Like many orgs, we have already started next year’s annual planning, including our 2025 state legislative strategy, which is simpler than passing federal policies. 

Until very recently, me and many colleagues were knee deep in extremely depressing scenario planning about how to combat Project 2025 in the event of a Republican trifecta–still a possibility, though a greatly diminished one compared to a month ago.  Right now we need to spend a little less time readying for the worst case scenario, and start prepping for the best case scenario. That entails groups along the left spectrum getting together on ideas that are sufficiently bold for people on the left, but palatable for people closer to the center, and keeping our bi-partisan, common ground coalitions as warm as possible in the midst of an election.  

When it comes to what the winning policies are: On criminal justice, that means going all in on the overdose crisis, where smart policies could dramatically reduce the number of deaths– currently at over 100,000 per year. That’s an issue affecting every community regardless of race, class and geography. Another is taking on the insurance industry for blocking access to mental healthcare and making therapy unaffordable and out of reach. Along the way there are policies with strong bipartisan support, like reforming extreme sentences for drug crimes and expanding support for people coming home from prison. On the climate side, the clean energy revolution is almost here, but we need to make it way easier to get that energy across the country through transmission and permitting policy so it can lower peoples’ energy bills. We also need to hurry up and get the billions of dollars set aside in the Inflation Reduction Act into the hands of local governments and local companies to create good new jobs, so the economic benefit is spread to communities who need it most, not just to large, well-connected corporations. I won’t step too far outside my lane, but I’m sure there are examples in healthcare, education, Gaza, and other issues that can also impact peoples’ lives immediately. 

November 2024 to December 2026 is the 26 month runway that will define the next generation of American politics, either dooming us to relentless stagnation with an underlying dread of a Project 2025-style fascist takeover, or inspiring a new generation to believe that passing policies to dramatically change peoples’ lives is possible. Those are stakes worth preparing for.

Postgame: Most of you know I am committed to defeating Mayor Eric Adams in 2025. To further that effort, we are hosting a few events for potential candidates this September. Please reach out over email if you’re interested in joining.