Continued struggles for the democratic party
The democrats are trying to make 2026 a real comeback year after losing both houses in Congress and the presidency in the latest election. Even though the party has had some success in recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York as well as other smaller races, the fact is that the party is still looking for an identity and a new leader. Within the democratic field, surveys in 2026 showed Kamela Harris leading prospective primary voters overall in many polls, with California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also drawing measurable support, along with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. This is not an impressive field and to think Harris will ever win seems farfetched after her disastrous run in 2024. The question is also how far to the left the party is willing to go? Candidates on the far left have been successful within the primaries and in heavily democratic states such as New York and California, but they have not been able to win any nationwide elections. As a result, the best chance to win is to find a relatively moderate democrat to lead the party for the best chance to win in 2028.
As the war in Iran is one of the most covered items in the U.S. currently, democrats seem to believe what is good for the national security of the U.S. is bad for the democratic Party. Republicans have generally supported democratic presidents in wartime, Kosovo 1999, Libya 2011 and Yemen 2024. Democrats have done mostly the same for republican presidents, Iraq 1991 and 2003 and Afghanistan 2001. But with Trump and Iran, things are different: Democrats are in uniform, rageful opposition.
The democrats bully the president daily even amid combat operations, much to the delight of the Iranian mullahs, who avidly consume US media and thrive on US division. Given the nature of the nuclear threat, democrats’ arguments against the war seem largely second-order, the war lacks legal authorization, breaks international laws, and lacks clear purpose, the strikes are spiking oil prices and inflation. Though the democrats do not like the Iranian regime, they might hate Trump and Israel more and they do not want to see Trump or Netanyahu getting credit for what would be a historic win for global peace and defeat of a major terror state. As the democratic party has moved further to the left, they are firmly against Israel and promotes a free Palestine and they have been a party of appeasement and weakness in the face of Mideast terrorists. Democrats also tend to favor diplomacy and international cooperation for resolutions of conflicts, but that has definitely not been successful with Iran under Obama and Biden. As a result, Iran has armed proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah and built up their own arsenal of weapons.
The appeasement and diplomacy-only mindset have a complex provenance, a left-wing conceit in its own persuasive skills, the delusional class struggle and ideological and the idea pushed by progressive academics and politicians that the bad guys will join the global rules-based order with the right incentives. They will not. To the bad guys in the region, appeasement just signals weakness. Obama was seen as so anxious for a diplomatic capstone that Iran was able to maneuver him into a nuclear deal in 2015 that actually allowed Tehran to further its nuclear infrastructure with critical items like advanced centrifuges. Obama also rewarded Iran with billions of dollars in cash and sanctions relief. Biden continued in the same vein. After initially expressing support for Israel, Biden repeatedly scolded it and demanded de-escalation, even as Iran was sponsoring a seven-front jihadist war against the Jewish state.
As the democratic party continued its move left, the party increasingly welcomed more extremist elements of the left, such as the socialist-Islamist, red-green alliance that has repeatedly expressed sympathy for terrorists and their anti-Western ideology. The far-left mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, dined with the leader of an organization that spreads Hamas propaganda and calls for the destruction of the West.
Despite the left-turning tendencies within the party, it seems that the democrats have some momentum as long as they remain consistent in their focus on affordability and what the party can do for working- and middle-class families instead of focusing on transexuals, open borders and racial initiatives as DEI. The economy and affordability are still front and center with voters. Democrats are also against any kind of war and will likely focus on this too. For the democrats to win though, it will require a more moderate and centrist view of the world. If they manage to find a moderate candidate and focus on the right issues, in particular how to make the economy better and fairer, they have a chance in the upcoming elections. If they venture too far to the left, it will likely be another republican landslide.