DENVER – Democrats are calling on their party to get to work during the final two years of President Donald Trump’s administration, saying the risk is too high to not find areas of common ground.
At the two-day What’s Next conference in Denver, a celebration of the Democratic Party’s historic election gains, strategists and lawmakers are acknowledging that voters have not necessarily bought into their brand. Instead, they warn that unless Democrats deliver over the next two years, their electoral gains could prove short-lived.
“Our party is on probation with voters, who might not like us very much or know exactly what we stand for, but who have given us a chance anyway,” Stephanie Valencia, co-founder of Equis Research, told attendees. “We maybe have the next year to 18 months to show voters who we are, or the pendulum might swing right back.”
Democrats centered their midterm election pitch around tackling the affordability crisis and lowering the cost of living exacerbated by the war in Iran. At a welcome event hosted by Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) Thursday night, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Democrats now are tasked with working hard to “complete the project to end this national nightmare, to make this country affordable for every single American, to hold the crooks accountable who’ve unleashed unprecedented corruption.”
But with Trump still in the White House, Democrats face a choice between fighting the president or finding opportunities to work with him.
When asked on the sidelines of the conference if delivering for voters included working with Trump, Iowa Democratic Gov.-elect Rob Sand bluntly said, “Yes, because he’s there.”
“He was put there two years ago,” Sand said. “He’s going to be there another two years. You don’t get to pick and choose who you work with. The people do, and when the people say, ‘I want you working with this person,’ you salute and you say, ‘Absolutely, we’re going to get done everything that we can for you.”
Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-TX) dared Democrats to make Trump’s final two years the “most productive of any presidency in American history.”
“This moment is so much bigger and so much more important than the red team with a blue team,” Talarico said during his Thursday panel remarks. “It’s so much bigger than party. We are tired of being pitted against each other.”
Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who ran in the state’s divisive Senate primary, told the Washington Examiner that Democrats should “get caught trying on the federal level.”
McMorrow added that Democrats should also use their new congressional majorities to put Trump on the spot, advancing an ambitious legislative agenda and daring him to veto their priorities.
“Send him as many pieces of legislation as you possibly can,” McMorrow said. “Dare him to veto an increase to the minimum wage, universal health care, child care, you name it. Like send things to his desk and see what he does with it, because people want to see that you’re not just there to hold a seat.”
The calls for Democrats to figure out a way to work with the president come even as they dig deeper into their plans to launch sweeping oversight investigations of Trump, his family, and his allies when they take control of Congress in January.
Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA), who is poised to take the gavel come January, has told Trump and his allies to “LAWYER UP.”
The sweeping oversight measures proposed by congressional Democrats, however, aren’t being embraced by everyone in the party.
“I don’t want to see you just throwing bombs at each other,” Sand said. “There are people who are really struggling right now whose lives have been ruined by high gas prices, by all kinds of policy choices, and they need results.”
LUTNICK EMERGES AS FAVORED NEXT-TO-GO IN TRUMP’S POST-MIDTERM PERSONNEL SHUFFLE
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told the Washington Examiner that if Democrats don’t deliver the promises they made to voters this cycle to lower the cost of living, “There will be a backlash.”
“If all we do is investigations and we don’t deliver, the same folks who voted against Democrats in ’24 and voted for Trump, and then voted against Republicans are going to vote against us,” Coons said. “It’s that simple. That’s what democracy needs. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of folks who want to see some accountability for the ways in which Trump’s corruption hurt us as a country, but I think they also want to see us actually deliver things that make their lives better.”