Politics
Democrats’ approach to Trump this time is much quieter
When President Donald Trump signed the pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, many 2028 Democratic hopefuls didn’t acknowledge it. And few got sucked into an outrage cycle over Elon Musk’s straight-arm gesture during Trump’s inauguration celebration.
This week provided some clues about an emerging approach that’s coming to define Democrats at the outset of Trump’s second administration, firmly breaking with its fury-fueled resistance roots of 2017. Instead, Democratic state and congressional leaders are primarily looking for openings to attack the president, while promising bipartisanship and trying to model a Democratic alternative in the states.
In interviews with more than a dozen Democratic elected officials and strategists, they explained the shift as evidence of a party reorienting itself after sweeping losses and biding its time until public sentiment potentially turns against Trump. That’s because they are in less friendly territory than in 2017. Trump won the popular vote and all 50 states shifted right in 2024. Thirteen House Democrats are now sitting in districts Trump won last November, but another 50 represent seats that Kamala Harris won by 9 points or less. Just a few thousand showed up to protest Trump’s inauguration.
Democrats are “being more measured because people are just so tired, so there isn’t the energy to stay at an 11 for the next four years,” said Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. “My advice is, call it out, be blunt, but don’t shriek about it.”
But for many of the future leaders and possible 2028 Democratic primary contenders, Trump’s pardons and Musk’s gesture — moments that would have inspired public outcry eight years ago — did not draw an immediate public response. Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did not weigh in with statements or on social media. Nor did Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro did address Trump’s pardons when asked by local reporters. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was a notable outlier, posting on X that Musk’s salute was “outrageous” and criticizing Trump for his pardons.
“Joe Biden is leaving as a very unpopular Democratic president, we lost the popular vote and people are pissed at us over inflation, culture and the border,” Mike Nellis said, a Democratic strategist who worked on Harris’ 2020 presidential primary. “We have to change our tact because we have to earn people’s trust back.”
Confronting this new reality means Democrats are “not going to use the playbook from 2024 or 2017, if I’m looking to run in 2028,” said one Democratic adviser to a potential 2028 Democratic candidate granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions, adding that “if you rush to the cameras every time there’s an outrage, that’s the old playbook.”
“The path to prominence is not in endless resistance headlines,” said an adviser to another potential 2028 candidate. A third operative, who is also close to another prospective presidential candidate, said that “a bunch of 2028-ers are still thinking through what their argument is going to be for how to fix the party, so it’s hard to be out there without a solution in hand.”
But that muted approach has also left a messaging void, which is frustrating some Democrats. One Democratic strategist said it’s “a big concern that we are rudderless” and “there’s a space out there for someone to fill,” but “right now, it’s deafening.”
For some, the silence is a missed opportunity. “If you’re thinking of running for president in 2027, I understand why your advisers are saying, keep your head down and pick your spots,” said one Democratic strategist who worked on a 2020 presidential primary campaign. “No one wants to stick their head up yet, but they’re also over-learning their lesson of 2017 and 2018, worrying about whether the resistance efforts ultimately helped candidates — or didn’t — when they ran for president in 2019.”
The operative argued there is still “grassroots energy” for Democrats, “but they’re not seeing anybody take the mantle.”
Of course, there are exceptions. Chief among them is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who did not attend the inauguration and said in an Instagram video: “Two of probably the most foundational, defining things about American history is that we beat the Confederates and we beat the Nazis,” referring to Musk, who has mocked these accusations. She told comedian Jon Stewart on his podcast that Trump is “much more normalized this time around,” but she argued that working class voters are still being “ripped off” by Trump, “a quintessential New York con man.”
A few argued it’s too early to judge: “It’s been the first week, and it’s such a deluge, but we will, in this tax fight, really find our sweet spot of highlighting how he’s been for tax breaks for the wealthy and not for the working class,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
Throughout the 2024 general election, Harris and Walz castigated Trump and Musk, and Democrats noted that keeping a low profile after an election loss is not unusual. After certifying the results of the election earlier this month, Harris told reporters that a “peaceful transfer of power” should be something “Americans take for granted,” an implicit reference to the insurrection on Jan. 6.
Walz, for his part, proposed a sales tax cut in Minnesota this month, but hasn’t waded back into national politics. Whitmer, too, pledged to not “go looking for fights” with Trump, but she promised to not “back down from them, either,” in a speech at the Detroit Auto Show last week. Newsom, meanwhile, greeted Trump on the tarmac on Friday when the president arrived for a tour of wildfire damage in Los Angeles, even though he wasn’t invited.
But the party’s broader stasis is also reflected in the contest for Democratic National Committee chair, which has centered on party mechanics over ideology or messaging. The contest’s two frontrunners — Ken Martin, chair of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party — are broadly in line with each other over commitments to building up a year-long campaign infrastructure and reinvigorating state parties across the country.
The bloodless response to the party’s 2024 losses in the DNC chair race prompted Faiz Shakir, a longtime progressive strategist who managed Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, to get into the race. Shakir acknowledged that there’s “a lot of fatigue” for Democrats, but he also said that “there’s a hesitancy to define a Democratic brand right now” — and the tenor in the DNC chair race is an example.
“People are still struggling with the framework of how you challenge Donald Trump for failing to deliver for working people, but the frame is there, right now, it’s — he’s up for auction,” Shakir said, citing the posse of Silicon Valley billionaires who attended the president’s inauguration. “But maybe it’s uncomfortable language for Democrats, who haven’t talked like this for a long time, to talk about the ruling elites.”
Ally Mutnick contributed reporting.
Under the political radar, the country’s food stamps program is undergoing a slow-motion transformation. The ramifications could bubble up into the midterms.
Changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act are rolling out in phases, from tougher work requirements to restrictions on non-citizens. Food stamp rolls already shrank by more than 5 million people nationwide as of this summer, as the hardest-hit state, Arizona, saw an outright majority of its food stamp recipients lose benefits.
The latest alteration clicked into place Oct. 1, when the share of administrative costs states and counties have to pay rose to 75% from 50%. An even bigger financial shift looms in a year, when states with high payment error rates will have to assume some benefit costs for the first time, a scenario that’s already rippling through state and local budget planning.
It all adds up to a new era in federal-state relations — and in the size and nature of the welfare state.
In a year when affordability worries top voters’ priority lists and grocery prices strain their wallets, Democrats think the SNAP shift gives them an opening to make Republicans pay politically after the GOP used social safety net cuts to food aid and Medicaid to help pay for last year’s tax cuts.
“People are getting kicked off these programs at the very moment they’re going to the polls to vote,” House Agriculture ranking member Angie Craig (D-Minn.) said. “I sure wouldn’t want to be a Republican headed into the November ballot.”
But Republicans think they have a compelling story to tell voters, trying to right-size a program that spends millions of dollars on erroneous payments. The SNAP changes align with the Trump administration’s broader push to crack down on fraud and make the government smaller or more efficient. Implementing stricter work requirements for welfare often polls well, and trying to move people toward work gets at the root causes of poverty, they argue.
“The premise is simple: Let’s make sure that this program is preserved for those truly in need, and that we aren’t squandering taxpayer dollars,” a senior USDA official told Playbook in an interview. “And let’s make sure that if folks are able-bodied, they are work training or volunteering for 20 hours per week.”
That doesn’t mean Republicans in competitive races are putting SNAP and Medicaid cuts front and center on the campaign trail. When they tout last year’s megalaw, new tax breaks typically lead the messaging. And 10 frontline GOP House campaigns didn’t respond to requests for interviews about how they can win on SNAP.
At the state and county level, some governments are scrambling to prepare for a massive cost shift, hitting at the same time as significant Medicaid changes. The resulting bureaucratic jumble has contributed to some of the SNAP losses this year, as recipients struggled to get through overtaxed call centers, some states cut staff, and others tightened their processes.
“It really sets up a change in the federal responsibility, and I view it as a slippery slope,” warned Barbara Guinn, New York’s commissioner of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. Her state is staring down a possible $1 billion added burden next year, though they’re advocating for a repeal of the benefits change. “Once they implement any kind of cost shift, I think it will be easier for them to take similar actions in the future.”
Whether to delay next year’s cost shift has already generated tensions over the farm bill in the Senate, where Democrats are demanding a longer postponement than Republicans’ offer of one year. Some Minnesota counties are considering significant property tax increases to pay for the extra costs, Craig said: “We’re going to be pushing hard for a two-year delay — at the request of, frankly, many of my Republican county commissioners, not just Democrats.”
Conservatives see the new calculus as a long overdue change to improve efficiency and incentivize program integrity. Improper payment rates are high in many states (though they comprise both over-payments and under-payments, and error rates are different from fraud). Those that reduce errors enough won’t have to take on paying the benefits. And even opponents of the changes think lower error rates are a worthy goal. SNAP rolls often ebb and flow with the economy, and the recent drop could reflect the job market pulling people out of need — or the removal of people who shouldn’t have been getting food stamps in the first place.
“There needs to be some level of accountability,” the USDA official said. States with high error rates “need to start to have skin in the game.”
But at a time when many households are already squeezed by inflation, the SNAP changes have correlated with higher numbers of Americans turning to charities to ward off hunger. The surge in people losing food aid came more quickly than expected. The unemployment rate hasn’t meaningfully changed. And the vast majority of large food banks in a recent NBC survey said they were grappling with higher demand, in part due to food stamp changes. Another rule kicking in the day after the midterms could lead to many retailers being bumped out of SNAP as places where low-income people can use their benefits.
For state governments, a set of sweeping operational changes are now underway to conform to new policy demands, often requiring more money or staffing at already under-resourced offices. And the budgetary stakes to get error rates lower are sky-high.
“It’s a really complicated, nuanced and confusing time for states who are trying to administer SNAP,” said Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director at the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, which has advocated for a delay in the benefits costs shift.
National Democrats are increasingly shifting their attention away from North Carolina’s Senate race as polls show former Gov. Roy Cooper ahead, eyeing once long-shot races as possible pickups. But a veteran Democratic strategist who helped deliver the party’s last presidential victory in the state is urging donors not to take a win for granted.
David Plouffe, who managed behind Barack Obama’s narrow 2008 victory in North Carolina, urged Democratic donors and supporters not to grow complacent in the final weeks of Roy Cooper’s Senate campaign, according to audio obtained by Blue Light News.
“I think that this race … has I think been the best run race in the country,” Plouffe said on the call. “But that doesn’t mean that we can rest easy.”
He warned about North Carolina’s relatively fixed partisan makeup as a purple state, making it difficult for a candidate to dramatically expand their base of support.
“There’s certain states that elections happen within a bound, and this one will be that way as well,” he said.
In public polling, Cooper leads Republican Michael Whatley, who has struggled to boost his name recognition against the much better-known former governor. And as Democrats grow increasingly bullish on their candidate’s chances of flipping the seat — one of four pickups they need to take control of the Senate — national groups have begun shifting their money and attention to other contests, including most recently to Kansas.
But Plouffe said North Carolina needs to remain a priority.
“We have to win the ones we have to win,” he said on the call to Cooper’s finance committee.
Just days before Plouffe’s remarks, Senate Democrats’ top super PAC pulled back some of its spending in North Carolina, following a much bigger retreat by Republicans’ top super PAC in the state.
Plouffe cautioned that North Carolina has historically been a tough state for Democrats at the federal level, especially in recent years. The party hasn’t won a Senate race there since 2008, when Obama became the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state, winning by fewer than 15,000 votes. He lost the state in 2012.
“Even though we carried the electoral votes back then, we only did so by I think 14,000 votes. So it was our narrowest victory,” Plouffe said. “And in 2012, we tried to win North Carolina again with the help of so many people on this phone, and we just couldn’t get it done. And that tells you how difficult the state is.”
Plouffe also cast the stakes of Cooper’s race as extending beyond November, arguing that a Cooper victory could provide a blueprint for the party’s eventual 2028 presidential nominee.
“Democrats need to compete and win in North Carolina in 28,” he said. “And it’s one thing to look how a governor can win a state. The best route, the best scout that you receive, is how someone in a federal race won in a tough state, and that can show you the way.”
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