Democrats Need to Tell the Story of the Big Ugly Bill
Democrats can’t win in 2026 by only organizing in targeted districts
When thinking about how to win an election cycle – which in the case of 2026 means at the very least winning the House back, but hopefully also winning the Senate, and having significant net gains in Governor and state legislative races – there are two ways to think about it. Both are incredibly important, but historically Democrats have been much better at one of them than the other.
The first way of thinking about, planning for, and putting resources into elections is to focus on the individual competitive races. This is what the party committees, the big super PACs, and many progressive groups usually focus on. We have oftentimes done pretty well at this. Even in 2024 – which was a bad year for Democrats across the board and where we lost all 7 presidential battleground states – we did much better in the battlegrounds than the nationwide trend, and we won a lot of the close Senate and House races in spite of the tide going against us. In past cycles, being good at targeting the close races helped us win a lot of close races we might not have won otherwise.
However, being good at working the battleground races won’t win enough races if the tide is going against us, and the tide is determined by the narrative around the election. Since I have been involved in national politics, my experience is that every election except one has been about one foundational narrative, and whichever party wins the narrative wins the election:
In 1992, it was about, yes, the economy, stupid. Everything else Bush tried to talk about came to be seen as him desperately trying to change the subject.
In 1994, it was about the undisciplined failures of the early Clinton presidency, especially health care.
In 1996, the story that dominated the landscape was Bill Clinton standing strong against Gingrich when the Republicans tried to cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, Education, and the Environment. (Sound familiar?)
In 1998, the story was about the two parties' reaction to the Lewinsky scandal. Leading Democrats initially wanted to talk about anything but Lewinsky, but a coalition of strategists and groups – including the newly created MoveOn.org, the first political group to organize online, and People For the American Way – figured out that voters thought Republicans overreacted and they wanted to move on and talk about real issues. Democrats ended up doing far better than any of the pundits predicted, actually picking up 4 seats in the House.
In 2000, this was the election that didn’t have a definitional narrative that either party was able to sell, so of course it became the closest election in American history. The story was muddled on both sides – the Republicans trying to sell a muddled version of “compassionate conservatism”, Gore dancing around whether he was close to Clinton and changing personalities as well as themes in each debate. No surprise that 2000 produced what was by some measures the closest presidential race in history.
In both 2002 and 2004, in the wake of 9-11, the story was all about who was going to keep us safe from terrorists, and the Republicans convinced voters it would be them.
In 2006, Democrats built a campaign around a series of Republican congressional scandals that we called Campaign for a Cleaner Congress. That issue of government reform, combined with steadily increasing voter disgust with the Iraq War, allowed the Democrats to win back both the House and Senate, something no one thought they would do.
In 2008, voters were feeling the hurt of the melting down economy and enthusiastically picked up on the Hope and Change story the Obama campaign was telling.
In 2010, voters reacted badly to the sense that the Obama administration was soft on Wall Street, and the Republicans also successfully sold the line that Obamacare was going to be taking away people’s health care.
In 2012, voters were still in a growly mood about the economy, but Democrats were saved by the Republicans nominating a Wall Street venture capitalist when people were still pissed as hell about the 2008 financial meltdown. The story Democrats were able to tell about Romney and Bain Capital carried the day.
By 2014, the bloom was off the Obama rose, and voters were looking for change, this time away from Obama rather than for him. The story was that people still felt like the economy was pretty bad but Obama didn’t seem to get the hurt people felt.
The 2014 feeling carried over into 2016. Obama and Hillary Clinton kept trying to tell a story about a good economy based on statistics, but working class voters especially weren’t buying it. Voters didn’t love Trump but they loved the idea of flipping the bird to the establishment.
By 2018, people were over the Trump story, and people who didn’t like Trump had been newly energized to fight back. We had the highest turnout in the midterms in modern political history. That story of needing to change from Trump carried into 2020.
2022 was another election with a muddled story and a close election where neither side had a decisive advantage. Republicans were working to sell the story that inflation was all Biden’s fault, while Democrats continued to talk about the threat to democracy, and told the story of women’s health and freedom being threatened by the overturning of Roe.
In 2024, Democrats continued to try and scare people on the democracy question, but it fell flat against the Republicans’ relentless pounding away on inflation and immigration. Their framing of those carried the day because Democrats never developed a successful counter-narrative on those issues.
Trump threatening our democratic form of government, and the parties’ respective framing of immigration, will certainly be big issues in 2026 and 2028. But this budget bill that just passed has such enormous consequences for so many families that it could be the dominant story line of the next two elections. That is a great opportunity for the Democrats, as the tax cuts for millionaires in order to take away health care and food for hungry kids is a powerful narrative for us.
However, we better damn well focus in on telling this story, and not get distracted by whatever the next Trump distraction is. We need every organization out there telling this story. We need everyone on social media telling this story. We need Democratic and progressive donors giving money to a campaign to tell this story.
The Republicans are already spending millions to tell their version of the story – that your taxes will be cut, that waste and fraud and abuse will be eliminated, that only the lazy will feel the pain of the cuts, etc. They will spend more and more. They will be focused like a laser beam on this definitional fight over this legislation, even while they try to distract Democrats and voters with other showier issues.
We need to tell the story of this horrible bill. Parties that define the terms of the debate and tell a successful story are the ones that win elections. When Democrats have planned ahead, like in 1992, 2006, and 2008, and put real resources into a storytelling campaign about the biggest issue of the day, is when we have won big. Now is the time to start telling our story.