The Briefing, Vol. XIII, Issue 43
Oct. 27, 2025
This week:
- Democrats still haven’t hit rock bottom
- Shutdown will soon start to bite the poor
- Dems’ ferocious Maine oppo dump suddenly makes sense
Outlook
Rock Bottom: Since November, Democrats have been in recovery from a punishing loss. The question is, are they actually recovering? That is to say, are they fixing what’s wrong in preparation for the next battle?
Set aside 2025 for a moment, given its limited competition, low stakes and the uneven ground on which it is being fought in New Jersey and Virginia. The question is whether Democrats are setting themselves up to rebound in the 2026 midterms, or whether they are ?
Here are two historical measurements of that question.
First, consider the generic ballot polling. At this point in the 2022 election cycle, in which Republicans retook the House — that is to say in early 2021 — Democrats led in the generic congressional ballot poll average by 0.1 points — essentially a tie. They went on to lose the national popular vote that year by 2.7 points overall. At this point in 2018, a cycle in which Democrats retook the House, they led by ten points on the generic ballot average and went on to win by about 8.6 points nationally. As of last week, Democrats were leading by just 2.6 points. Which is simply to say, it would be a mistake (at least at this point) to confuse their current rage over the Trump administration for anything related to electoral potency.
Second, consider the Cook House ratings for 2026, which also take into account at least part of the redistricting battle being quietly waged in a number of states. At the moment, Cook considers 190 House seats to be “solid Republican,” and another 26 to be “likely Republican.” That comes to 216, two seats short of what’s needed for a majority, compared to 202 solid or likely seats for Democrats, with the remainder considered “lean” or “tossup.” Based on these ratings, and assuming that there is no further redistricting in Florida, Alabama, or Louisiana, Republicans don’t have to win even a single toss-up seat to defend their House majority.
Issues with issues: So what is the issue for Democrats? It’s not just their communications strategy, and it’s not just momentum on President Trump’s part. Their problem is much more one of substance. On the core issues that won the 2024 election for Trump — the economy, immigration and crime — he is delivering successfully so far. The most perilous of the three, the economy, has yet to turn south, and in fact the resolution of some of the loudest complaints about it (inflation, egg prices and gas prices) come as welcome news for most people. As interest rates begin to come down and the Trump tariffs face an uncertain future before the Supreme Court, there could yet be a crisis coming. But no one thinks we are having a crisis right now.
A recent interview response by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate — is the exception that proves the rule about the immigration issue. Asked point blank about the Biden administration’s handling of the border, Sanders said, “”If you don’t have any borders, you don’t have a nation,” he told podcaster Tim Dillon. “Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, but we should have a secure border. It ain’t that hard to do. Biden didn’t do it.” This is more than any other federal-level Democrat has been willing to admit.
Consider that Democrats as a party, as recently as 2012, would not have supported the Biden border policy of letting everyone in who shows up with minimal or no vetting. Democrats of the past did not largely support leniency for violent and repeat career criminals, either. But today, most of their municipal-level elected city politicians do support that, and their elected district attorneys across the country do indeed practice it.
Quality of life: Democrats remain lost chiefly because they walked away from the public safety consensus formed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. What Trump is accomplishing with his crime crackdown in Washington D.C. is an illustration: Cities do not have to be crime-ridden or hopelessly dystopian — a message that counteracts the attempts to make chaos and danger seem an inevitability. In fact, the arrest and deportation of thousands of criminal aliens is already believed to be having a measurable effect on crime rates across the nation.
Contrast that message, which will be ripe to share next year, with that of today’s Democrats. They mostly make their voices heard by protesting the enforcement of existing immigration law as if it were some kind of gestapo-authoritarian menace. They think the nation is with them on this, but it just really isn’t.
Democrats keep losing because they are at cross-purposes with voters even now on the issues that cost them both houses of Congress, seven out of seven swing states, and the popular vote in 2024.
And this is before even mentioning the Left’s much crazier ideas, such as gender ideology and the DEI and ESG fads that have gained so much currency in corporate America.
So far, Democrats have largely failed to correct course on any of these issues. As with Sanders’s interview, there are occasional faint hints here and there that someone is getting wise, but for the most part they are in denial and at best talking around these issues. Democrats keep turning to damage-control and communications strategies, where what they really need is to come back to where the country is on several major issues.
Shutdown update: Once again, the media are going out of their way to avoid covering the story of the shutdown. It’s not that they don’t mention it, but when Republicans cause shutdowns, the typical media treatment is wall-to-wall sob stories. We aren’t getting any of that this time. Instead, the shutdown is now quietly slinking into its fifth week, all because congressional Democrats won’t vote for a clean continuing resolution to fund the government.
Some have posited that this is a Democratic get-out-the-vote strategy, and that there is therefore no chance of a resolution before Nov. 5. Others believe Democrats are daring Republicans to abolish the filibuster, so that they can come back later and pass more radical legislation when they win back power. (This would be a miscalculation, as we have previously argued.)
The problem Democrats face, however, is that the shutdown is finally about to start biting ordinary people — something that almost never happens because federal government shutdowns almost never last this long. Beginning Nov. 1 (this Saturday), the shutdown will cause food-stamp recipients in many states to have their benefits reduced or cut off altogether as the federal share of the money stops.
Governor 2025
New Jersey: Although the polls remain close and probably favor Democrat Mikie Sherrill overall, these are often wrong. Early voting points to a much better scenario for Republicans than they had in 2021, when their current nominee, former state Sen. Jack Ciattarelli (R), came within three points of defeating incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy (D).
As of Saturday, Republicans were accounting for more than 48 percent of the two-party early vote this year — significantly more than the 40 percent they had tallied out of the 2021 electorate, and on much higher volume. That may just signify an overall shift toward early voting, but it is certainly not a bad sign for the turnout improvement they hope to achieve this year as the Garden State becomes more and more competitive for Republicans in the long run.
Senate 2026
Maine: Leftist oyster-farmer and harbormaster Graham Platner (D) attended a $75,000-a-year Connecticut boarding school, but this year he is being turned into the insurgent, anti-establishment progressive candidate for Senate in Maine. That makes him the latest example of the lab-created folksy Democrat.
Unfortunately for him, the establishment has struck back, and hard. The ferocity, volume and extreme early timing of the massive oppo dump being unloaded against Platner is quite something to see. At first, it didn’t seem to make sense. But then the University of New Hampshire released a poll showing Platner at 58 percent support among Democratic primary voters, compared to just 24 percent for Gov. Janet Mills (D). The NRSC subsequently released a second poll, also showing Platner with a comfortable lead among Democrats. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
Platner and Mills will be competing to take on moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R) next fall. Platner was under fire initially for his extremist Reddit postings, then for the Nazi-SS tattoo which he got on his chest (reportedly understanding what it was), then for reports that he helped train Antifa militias in weapons and tactics and called himself an “Antifa supersoldier.”
At this point, push-polls taken since the controversies began show him losing ground. But given the mood in today’s Democratic Party, Platner may not be finished yet, even with Mills having the full support of the Washington Democratic establishment.
