Part 1 Democrats don't know who they're fighting against
Part 2 How Democrats Can WIN, Really WIN.
Democrats want to win, but they face defections into the Republican Party. I don't think Democrats understand that they are on the unpopular side of things and they have only won elections in the 21st Century by the means of being the only major opposition party. They win only by reactionary votes, which will keep dwindling as time goes on.
Let's look at party switching to see what's going on there.
Switches by Democrats, Democratic to Republican
2024 – Marie Alvarado-Gil, California state senator
2024 – Todd Blanche, United States Deputy Attorney General (2025–present)
2024 – Matthew Coker, New Hampshire state representative
2024 – Sherry Gould, New Hampshire state representative
2024 – Mike McDonnell, Nebraska state senator
2024 – Gabriel Ramos, former New Mexico state senator, later re-elected New Mexico state senator
2024 – John S. Rodgers, former Vermont state senator, later lieutenant governor of Vermont (2025–present)
2024 – Gloria Romero, former California state senator
2024 – Doug Skaff, former West Virginia state delegate
2024 – Shawn Thierry, Texas state representative
2024 – Susan Valdes, Florida state representative
2024 – Hillary Cassel, Florida state representative
Switches by Republican, Republican to Democratic
2024 - Zero
2024 Feedback
Logically, anyone that wants to improve their party would say hmmm, why are we facing losses while the other side faces none? Is it an aberration? Is it our platform? What are we doing to improve on that to stem the losses? For a party that values intelligence, it does
nothing to use it when freely given. Let's just look at the reasons why these people switched.
Marie Alvarado-Gil - Aug 8th 2024 - Political Expediency, blue in a tradtionally red area. She states: "Democratic Party’s policies are hurting middle class and children in California and pushing the state in a wrong direction."
Todd Blanche - Trump's lawyer. Not much to learn here.
Matthew Coker - Feb 9 2024 - Political Expediency - He states: "As I reflect on the first half of my term it is abundantly clear to me
my proper place in this body is on the center right side of the aisle"
Sherry Gould - June 1 2024 - Political Expediency. - No reason given.
Mike McDonnell - Apr 3 2024 - LGBT, Abortion Issues He States: The party will not respect his "religious-based, pro-life position"
Gabriel Ramos - Mar 3 2024 - Abortion Issues. He states: "My values have not changed. What has changed is the divisive agenda of progressive politicians in Santa Fe"
John S. Rodgers - May 24 2024 - Political Expediency, self serving power. He states: "I changed the letter beside my name — literally, that’s all I did. I’m not a different person. I don’t have different values,” he said. “I don’t feel like I fit in any box""
Gloria Romero - Sep 9th 2024 - Abandoned by Party - She states: "Perhaps my biggest disconnect with my old party has been over school choice, education freedom and the right to have quality schools for all"
Doug Skaff - Oct 12th 2023 - Political Expediency, self serving power in red area. He states: "100,000 Republicans didn’t just move to West Virginia overnight, and change their party affiliation”
Shawn Thierry - Aug 30th 2024 - LGBT Issues - She states: "has veered so far left, so deep into the progressive abyss, that it now
champions policies that I cannot, in good conscience, support."
Susan Valdes - Dec 9th 2024 - Abandoned By Party - She states: "I will not waste my final two years in the Florida Legislature being
ignored in a caucus whose leadership expects me to ignore the needs of
my community."
Hillary Cassel - Dec 30 2024 - Political Expediency, she is Jewish. She states: "failure to unequivocally support Israel."
We can see that there are issues with Democrat messaging and how they respond to feedback from individual members. It's clear that the National Democratic message does not resonate in red regions. Intransigence in Democratic super majority areas are causing people to lose hope with Democrats.
I've looked at the National Democratic Party Platform and it is just a hodgepodge of ideals. How does anyone even turn that into a policy for that matter?
I was also interested in the West Virginia's Democratic Party Platform and I have to say that it tries to stay with the national platform also guts out anything about green/clean energy. My god, how hard is it to talk about keeping Oil and Gas as it is critical to the local economy while saying you do want to improve the air people breathe and water people drink? How hard is it to say that you want to introduce clean energy sources to help modernize West Virginia and create more jobs for the local economy alongside Oil/Gas. Let the market do the talking on which energy sources people want.
Democrats need to soften on some stances on the state level in order to stop playing defensive. They need to gain more political capital to go on the offensive to win voters on the state level. Federal politics right now is demonstrative of what's happening on a state level.