Democrats think in election cycles — Republicans think in decades  

The Democratic Party’s loss of the White House and Congress in 2024 has forced the party into a solemn quiescence.

Democrats admit the difficulties they experienced this year go far beyond the deficiencies of any particular candidate. Already, party strategists are thinking ahead to winning the 2026 midterm elections.  

But Democrats would be wise to emulate the Republicans who, when facing defeat, have thought in terms of decades, not of two-year cycles. 

The American Legislative Exchange Council is an illustration of such thinking. Established in 1975 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, ALEC became a vehicle for conservative state legislators to share ideas and draft model bills. 

Only 27 legislators attended the first ALEC conference. Decades later, ALEC counts more than 2,400 lawmakers in its ranks.

The organization has sponsored conservative legislation that restricts illegal immigration, fights environmental regulations, tightens voter identification laws, weakens labor unions, and opposes gun control.

Leaders We Deserve, founded by David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla., and co-founder of March for Our Lives, is likewise thinking about how young voters can exert their influence in the coming decade.  

Founded in August of 2023, Hogg told me in an interview last week that Leaders We Deserve raised $11 million and began recruiting young candidates for legislative offices. Leaders We Deserve focuses on recruiting young candidates who will fight for a progressive future and tackle issues like gun violence, climate change, affordability and rising costs, and attacks on rights and freedoms.  

Despite its late start in 2024, the organization claimed six important victories. It helped elect U.S. Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.,), soon to be the first transgender member of Congress; Bryce Berry, who ousted a Republican incumbent to become the youngest person elected to the Georgia state legislature; Dante Pittman, whose election to the North Carolina state legislature broke a Republican supermajority; Oscar De Los Santos, the youngest Arizona House minority leader; Molly Cook, the youngest member of the Texas state Senate; and Christine Cockley, the youngest member of the Ohio House.

For decades, Baby Boomers have controlled both major political parties. In 2016, at age 70, Donald Trump was elected president, followed by Joe Biden in 2020 who turned 78 shortly after his election. Trump is likely the last Boomer president, assuming office next year at age 78. Kevin Munger describes this gerontocracy’s legacy as “Boomer ballast” whose continuous hold on political power is deeply resented by Millennials and Zoomers.

Political demography is continuously changing. But as Democrats have learned, demography is not destiny. An electorate that skews younger, is more racially diverse, and more female than male does not translate into automatic victories or generate the reforms younger voters seek.  

Hogg understands this. He told me: “In college, I studied the way conservative political movements built their power over the past thirty years, winning control of state legislatures and appointing a ton of far-right judges to advance their agenda,” he told me. “It didn’t happen out of nowhere — conservatives and Republicans worked tirelessly to get to where they are now.” 

Nonetheless, Hogg recognizes there are several challenges to getting younger voters to run for office. First, most do not see either party as having records of successful governance. Instead, they have witnessed a cascade of failures: growing economic and racial inequality, a worldwide pandemic, a climate crisis threatening the planet’s existence, a gun violence epidemic, and failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More than six out of ten Millennials and Zoomers say they distrusted their political leaders when they were coming of age. The alienation is pervasive. 

Another challenge is the poor pay given to state legislators. Unless those officeholders can rely on another source of income to pay for basic needs such as maternity leave or childcare, the incentives to run simply aren’t there. A recent study found the average state legislative salary is just under $40,000 per year, a figure that has actually decreased since 1970. 

Hogg understands that the success of Leaders We Deserve ultimately rests upon creating a network of officeholders that exchanges ideas and legislative proposals that can become the basis for real reforms across the country.  His hope is that Leaders We Deserve can be a resource center that can help write bills, share ideas, build coalitions, and partner legislators with other organizations.  

Crucially, Hogg recognizes that winning an election is just the beginning of instituting the kinds of progressive change he seeks. He cites the State Innovation Exchange as a model that helps legislators strategize and provide needed policy assistance, a potential resource for the public officials Leaders We Deserve seeks to elect.    

Building Leaders We Deserve into a powerful recruitment organization and resource center will not happen overnight. Like ALEC before it, Hogg is embarked on a decade-long project that will not yield immediate victories. But the doggedness of those conservatives who, decades ago, experienced defeat after defeat only to produce ultimate victories, is exactly what Hogg and Leaders We Deserve hope to emulate. 

This is exactly the kind of long-term thinking Democrats need at this moment.  

John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America. His latest book is titled “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.” He can be reached at johnkennethwhite.com.