Will Democrats Learn the Wrong Lesson From a Blue Wave?

The Democrats are poised to win big in next month’s elections. That’s great news because it will give the party enough congressional seats to rein in President Trump in Washington and enough gubernatorial and state legislative seats to blunt the mini-Trumps in red states and pass good policies in blue ones. But we shouldn’t necessarily interpret a sweeping Democratic victory as voters embracing liberalism or completely repudiating MAGA and Donald Trump. Why not? Because voters these days, both in the United States and abroad, just seem angry at whoever is in charge and eager to toss them aside. Incumbent parties and heads of states across the world are losing popularity and elections, whether they are leftist, center-left, center-right, or far right. That includes places where the economy is fairly good and the leader isn’t corrupt or inept like Trump. So Americans may hate Trump and the GOP simply because they are the incumbent party right now but be willing to return Republicans to power immediately after the next Democratic presidential victory. Democratic leaders should not treat the 2026 results as an indication that they have figured out American politics. Instead, they should continue looking for a political program that will keep voters in their fold even when Democrats are the incumbent party. When Kamala Harris lost in 2024, it was part of a global trend of voters rejecting incumbent parties. From 2021 to 2024, incumbent leaders were defeated in 40 of the 54 elections in Western democracies, according to Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky. In 2024 alone, 80 percent of incumbent parties in democracies lost seats or lost vote share compared to the prior election, according to an analysis from FiveThirtyEight. That included incumbent parties in Japan, Botswana, South Africa, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and many countries in Europe. We don’t have such sweeping data yet for 2025–2026. But anecdotally, the trend seems to be continuing. Incumbent parties have lost five of the seven national elections in the last two years in Latin America, according to an analysis from scholar Daniel Schteingart. Brazil’s leftist Workers Party seems likely to be the sixth incumbent party defeated, with its candidate, incumbent President Lula da Silva, trailing in the polls ahead of the October 25 runoff there. In Europe, ruling parties in France (center), Germany (center-right), Spain (left), and numerous other nations are sagging in polls. Britain’s center-left Labor Party ousted its leader, Keir Starmer, after the party’s poll numbers plunged. Hungary’s Fidesz, led by Trump ally Viktor Orbán, lost power in April. In the United States, the anti-incumbent trend arguably started well before the pandemic. Since Barack Obama’s 2012 win, every subsequent U.S. congressional and presidential election has been a rejection of the party occupying the White House. I would love to think that American voters are simply punishing the GOP this fall for Trump’s authoritarianism, the reckless tax cuts for the rich adopted by the president and Republicans in Congress, the unnecessary war in Iran that has resulted in sky-high energy prices, and the numerous other misdeeds and mistakes of Trump and his allies. But the political scientist part of my brain would say that the Republicans were essentially doomed in the 2026 midterms the moment Trump was declared the winner in 2024. It seems like everybody everywhere just hates incumbents these days. That makes interpreting the 2026 elections here in the United States very tricky. I suspect some voters are turning from Trump due to his actions. Some of them might appreciate the Democrats’ new focus on affordability and the young, charismatic candidates that the party is running, such as Texas’s James Talarico. But I worry that Democrats have largely just captured (and stoked) anti-incumbent sentiment by blasting Trump and Republicans for high gas prices and other societal problems. Voters here and abroad seem to be willing to blame everything on their country’s head of state. If I’m right, Democrats are in trouble the moment they win the presidency again—even if the GOP remains antidemocratic and radical. After all, Americans, frustrated with the incumbent party, sent Donald Trump of all people back to the White House in 2024. Right now, a speaker of the House in 2031 even more conservative than Mike Johnson and another Trump-like president taking office in 2033 seems entirely possible. Therefore, it’s imperative, with the 2028 primary about to launch, that Democratic operatives and officials start considering, “How can an incumbent president/party remain popular?” Liberal egalitarian multicultural democracy depends on pro-democracy parties here and abroad figuring this out. I’m not sure about the answer. Watching Lula, Joe Biden, Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and other leaders, I doubt that either the left’s strategy (focus on economic policy for the working class) or the center-left’s (break with minorities and marginalized groups on some issues, economic policy for the working class, economic growth) are sufficient. My thesis is that it’s some combination of economic policy for the working class, a charismatic leader, and relentless, savvy use of media and messaging. I suspect that Democratic officials should spend less time studying Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s decades-old political wins and more on the popularity of Zohran Mamdani and Mexico’s Morena Party. But I’m less sure of the solution than the problem. It’s good that this incumbent American president is unpopular, but scary and dangerous that these days it seems like all incumbent presidents everywhere are unpopular. I’m very glad America will likely have a blue wave next month. But our democracy won’t be secure until we have a blue wave while a Democratic president is in the Oval Office.