How young Democratic candidates are pushing to redefine the party’s future

Laura Barron-Lopez:

And, as Republicans are fighting internally over their big reconciliation package, we also want to talk about what is happening with Democrats.

The Democratic Party is still figuring out how to meet this moment. And we spoke to three Democrats, all launching first-time bids for national office in 2026 about what they think their party needs to do to win.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI):

I'm Mallory McMorrow. I'm from Royal Oak, Michigan, and I'm running for United States Senate.

Jake Rakov (D), California Congressional Candidate: My name is Jake Rakov. I am — live in Studio City, and I'm running for the 32nd Congressional District in California.

Kat Abughazaleh (D), Illinois Congressional Candidate: I'm Kat Abughazaleh. I'm from Chicago, and I'm running for Congress in the 9th District of Illinois.

Mallory McMorrow:

It is not enough to say Democrats are not in power right now, but just vote for us hard enough in the midterms. People want to see that you feel what they're feeling, that you feel the fear and anxiety and frustration and anger.

Kat Abughazaleh:

Every single authoritarian movement thrives when the opposition party refuses to actually stand up to them. Anyone that's taken a middle school history class knows that appeasement isn't effective.

Jake Rakov:

My opponent, Brad Sherman, has been in office for almost 30 years. He's in his 15th term. He was elected in 1996, when I was 8 years old. I think people who have been in power for that long and have so checked out of the district as he has is why we got Trump twice.

And so I'm running against him to bring a new generation to Congress to actually show those people who left our party that we are still a party of progress and still a party that's going to work for them.

Kat Abughazaleh:

A lot of Congress didn't grow up with school shooting drills. They don't worry about out-of-pocket expenses. They probably own their homes. And that's not the case for most of Gen Z.

Mallory McMorrow:

The idea that you can't afford to buy a house, that you don't have job security, that you may not have health care, that you may not be able to afford the things that came easier to our parents is a reality for me.

That means that I respond very differently than perhaps some members of my party who have been in office for many more years, who have come up in a very different time.

Kat Abughazaleh:

And that the strategy is to stand back, hands off until 2026 and hope enough people get hurt that they will vote Democrat in the midterms, that's not only morally repugnant. You are banking on people being hurt by this administration. But it's also stupid, because you're letting Trump dismantle this country.

Jake Rakov:

We all knew he was going to be a chaotic, he was going to be unstable, he was going to do power grabs. And to see how slowly they were to respond in the first few months, I think, upset a lot of our base and a lot of other Democratic voters who looked around and said, what are you doing? Do something. Do anything.

Mallory McMorrow:

This is about approach. Are you somebody who fights or are you somebody who sits back? Are you active or are you passive? Do you have the ability to break through, meet people where they are and talk to people in a real, human way? And that is my lane. I know how to break through. I know how to communicate with people.

Jake Rakov:

We have to have these conversations in our safest districts. We have to be able to fight amongst ourselves and have this discussion as Democrats where we know we're going to talk to our base and be strongest before we can even go into a swing district and hope of converting people and bringing back in people into the party that left us.

Kat Abughazaleh:

Democrats need to stop reacting to Republicans and just get back to basic humanity. We should all be agreeing, both parties, that the baseline is housing, groceries and health care with money left over. It's just common sense that, in the richest country in the world, in what many consider the greatest country in the world, that we should be taking care of our citizens.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Jasmine, you just heard one of the Democrats running saying Democrats need to be active, not passive.

Are Democrats meeting the demands that their voters are placing on them when it comes to confronting President Trump?

Jasmine Wright:

I mean, every Democratic voter I have talked to for the last three months would tell you no, quite frankly.

A lot of times, they call them feckless. A lot of times, they say that they're not meeting this moment, which to them requires a really strong Democratic Party pushing back against what Donald Trump is doing. Now, I think that the reality is that there's not a lot basically that Democrats can do because they are not in the majority on both chambers, but still voters want them to feel like they are doing something.

I think what I noticed in that video one is that all of those people were very young. I mean, I'm young, but they were young too, right? And I think it's a reflection of this conversation that's going on in Washington and beyond about the age of some of these Democratic leaders, particularly the ones that have been passing away in office.

But also it's trying to harness this energy that's saying that these Democrats in office are not doing enough for you. I will do something for you. But the reality is, is that the waiting — the game right now for Democrats is about waiting to see what happens with Donald Trump.

And even though that young politician said that that was immoral…

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Right.

Jasmine Wright:

… I think that is quite honestly the Democratic playbook right now.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Amy, with 30 seconds left, what did you make of those?

Amy Walter:

Yes. The get caught trying is what you hear a lot from Democratic base voters.

I know, I get the intellectual argument that we can't pass anything as Democrats because we're in the minority. But that doesn't mean that you can't show that you are actively finding ways to push back against the administration.

And, look, I think Mallory McMorrow put it very well. She said that the split in the party now, it's no longer ideological. It's really about who's a fighter and who's more passive.

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Amy Wright — sorry.

(Laughter)

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Amy Walter, Jasmine Wright…

Amy Walter:

Wait. I love that. We could work really well together.

(Laughter)

Laura Barron-Lopez:

Thank you so much for your reporting and insights.

Jasmine Wright:

You're welcome.