WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama hands over the White House to Republican Donald Trump in 71 days, leaving the Democratic Party leaderless and with few up-and-coming stars among its aging stalwarts.
In what appeared to be a wave election, Republicans also secured majorities they already enjoyed in the Senate and the House and in governor’s mansions and state legislatures across the country. Democrats were all but wiped out in places like Iowa and Kentucky.
The defeat of Hillary Clinton, an experienced Washington politician who sought common ground with Republicans, could make it more likely that the party will turn to its liberal wing as it grapples with its future. That’s best represented by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom Clinton defeated in a long primary, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a pull-no-punches progressive darling.
The Democratic Party should remold itself in the image of Warren and Sanders “and offer a systemic critique of the rigged economy” that appeals to the same voters who put Trump over the top, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Green said Democrats must make a “conscious decision to separate themselves from the corporate villains who are to a large extent funding their campaigns.”
Trump’s open warfare with Republican leaders over the past year and a half obscured the extent of the Democrats’ crisis, and they are only now beginning to contend with it.
“This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” Clinton said in her concession speech Wednesday in New York. She implored those who want to fight for Democratic values — particularly young voters — to participate every day, not just every four years.
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz urged careful deliberation as the Democratic reckoning begins. He said the “rush to recalibrate” strategy and messaging concerns him.
“Democrats need to take, not forever, but weeks and months to diagnose what just happened to us and why,” he said.
But the outlook for Democrats may well get worse before it improves.
In two years, they will be defending about two dozen Senate seats, including at least five in deep-red states. That election could hand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a filibuster-proof majority, further clearing the way for a conservative policy agenda.
“We have to ask ourselves what is wrong with our party,” said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, arguing it’s at least in part a failure to connect with working-class people who are hurting.
One small Democratic bright spot this year was the election of three women of color to the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Kamala Harris in California and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois. At the same time, the party’s marquee names are far older than the core Democratic coalition.
Sanders is 75, Warren 67 and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer turns 66 this month. Across the Capitol, Democrats are led by 76-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.
In a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Sanders said Democrats must take a strong stand against the role of corporate interests in politics.
That millions of white working-class people voted for Trump “suggests that the Democratic message of standing up for working people no longer holds much sway among workers in this country,” Sanders said.
Warren is speaking Thursday at an AFL-CIO executive council meeting. Although labor leaders spent millions of dollars backing Clinton, many union members, particularly in Rust Belt states that had been Democratic strongholds, appear to have voted for Trump.
“We should hear the message loud and clear that the American people want Washington to change,” Warren is telling them, according to her prepared remarks. “Working families across this country are deeply frustrated about an economy and a government that doesn’t work for them.”
Democratic woes ripple into their party’s infrastructure, as the Democratic National Committee in Washington struggles. Both the chairwoman who stepped down this summer and the woman who succeeded her in the interim have been dinged by embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks after what the government believes was a Russian hack of their internal Democratic systems.
Sanders said he would support Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota to become the next chairman of the DNC.
Democrats emphasized their party’s diversity, and some argued that Trump’s singular appeal as a plain-spoken celebrity businessman does not translate into a wholesale voter rejection of Democratic policies.
Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina party chairman, downplayed the idea that Trump’s nationalistic populism should necessarily push the Democratic Party leftward. “That might be overthinking what happened,” he said.
Harrison argued it’s more about finding the right messengers to take the Democratic platform to the pockets of the electorate that have drifted away from the party, naming New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker among others as potential role models for other Democrats.
Yet Walsh warned Democrats not to fall into the same trap as they did eight years ago, after an inspiring 47-year-old first-term senator with a powerful stage presence was elected president.
“Every now and then you get a shining star, and that person takes over the party,” Walsh said. “And during that time you sort of lose the bench.”
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Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
