Shellshocked Dems return to Capitol to reckon with drubbing

House Democrats returned to the Capitol on Tuesday, dejected and licking their wounds after an election drubbing a week earlier that will put Donald Trump back in the White House and Republicans in control of all the levers of power in Washington next year.

While Democrats in the lower chamber outperformed Vice President Harris at the polls — a dynamic that will leave Republicans with another razor-thin majority in the 119th Congress — that moral victory was a dim consolation for a party that had hinged its campaign on warnings that Trump posed a material threat to America’s foundational democratic traditions. 

Faced with Trump’s runaway victory for a second term in the White House, Democrats are now in the early stages of a post-mortem reckoning about what went wrong and how to turn the ship around — a somber discussion that’s already featured plenty of finger-pointing about where the blame should fall.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a 30-year veteran of the House who was the first Democratic lawmaker to call on President Biden to step aside. “There have been other challenges in the past, but this is certainly the greatest one of my political life.”

House Democrats lost a number of members who won’t be returning next year. Many of those are retirements, and some are lawmakers who ran — and won — races for higher office. But others were defeated at the polls last week, including two veteran Pennsylvania lawmakers — Reps. Matt Cartwright and Susan Wild — who had 20 years of experience between them. 

Assembled on the House floor Tuesday night, Democrats of all stripes lined up to comfort their vanquished friends — a biennial ritual that felt even more momentous this year because of Trump’s imminent return to the White House.

Wild — a six-year veteran of the House who lost re-election by one percentage point last week — received a hug from Rep. Lori Trahan (Mass.) on the floor. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) embraced Rep. Colin Allred (Texas), who lost his bid for Senate last week. And Rep. Kathy Manning (N.C.) was seen hugging Rep. Mary Peltola (Alaska), who is currently trailing in her contest.

There were, to be sure, some bright spots for the Democrats this cycle that revealed themselves on the floor. 

Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Delaware’s senator-elect, was taking photos with a bouquet of flowers on the floor. Rep. Dean Philips (Minn.) gave a congratulatory high-five to Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), who won a tough contest to become Michigan’s junior senator. And Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) hugged Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), who won his race to fill an open California Senate seat. 

Still, Democrats have been devastated by Trump’s victory. And Tuesday’s scene in the Capitol bore some echoes of Congress’s return to Washington in late 2016, after Trump stunned the country by defeating Hillary Clinton to win his first turn in the Oval Office.

Then, as now, Democrats were ready to celebrate the first female president in the country’s history. And then, as now, Trump dashed those plans when voters flocked to his “America First” message of populist nationalism. 

This time around, Democrats thought they had an additional advantage because of Trump’s legal woes, which include 34 felony convictions since he left office. This year was also the first presidential race since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which led directly to Trump’s second impeachment. 

Instead of celebrating a big win, however, Democrats were left to analyze how Trump — despite all the baggage — was able to convince voters that he was the better candidate. 

“It is healthy for us to have this conversation,” said Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.). “I know a lot of people [say], 'Well, let's not be critical.' No, no. ... I believe in after-action reports.”

Many Democrats have pointed fingers at Biden, whose disastrous debate against Trump in June had prompted other party leaders to convince him not to seek a second term. Some now say Biden and his team should have recognized his limitations earlier, and not sought reelection at all. 

“That's the only scenario I can think of where we might have had a chance, is if Biden had just never run for reelection,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (Calif.). “The White House did a pretty good job of keeping up appearances and concealing the problem. And it's a shame, it's a terrible shame that there wasn't more self-awareness there. 

“Ego, ambition, these other human qualities are powerful factors.”

Smith, who was among the first Democrats to call for Biden to drop off the ballot, agreed, saying the president’s long delay in making that decision left Harris in the difficult position of explaining why she hadn’t sounded the alarm on Biden’s fitness sooner. 

“He was struggling for months there, and a lot of people asked Vice President Harris, 'Well, you saw him struggling, did you think that was OK?' It put her in a very, very bad position,” he said. 

Some, however, put the onus on themselves for not calling on Biden to call it quits sooner.

“I only regret I didn’t do it earlier,” Doggett said of urging Biden to step aside. “I think it’s unfortunate that he took three weeks to decide.”

“I believe that the only person in our caucus who doesn't share some responsibility for the outcome is Dean Phillips, who came out early,” he continued, referencing the Minnesota Democrat who mounted a failed primary challenge to Biden. “I accept responsibility as well that there’s more that we could have done.”

With hopes of clinching control of the House gone, Republicans set to take the reins in the Senate, and Trump headed back to the White House for four years, House Democrats are looking ahead to the 2026 midterm elections — what they say is their next best hope of putting a check on the GOP’s control in Washington.

“It’s gonna be a long four years and we have to take it a day at a time, as I’m doing today,” Doggett said. “But the most important period will be these first two years, that’s when he’ll set the tone of how much of a tyrant he’ll be, and when our pushing back will count for the most.”

“But it’s also the two years that leads up to the greatest opportunity for us to have an effective check on him with the midterm elections,” he added.