Two years after United States voters delivered a stunning rebuke of the country’s Democratic Party by electing Republican President Donald Trump to a second nonconsecutive term, some of the party’s midterm candidates are reassessing stances on a host of hot-button issues.
Whether they have dialled it back on issues like transgender rights or ramped up efforts to oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Democrats in some of the toughest midterm battleground races are responding to voter concerns – or even breaking outright with party leadership.
Those shifts have resonated with some voters, while others have been alienated as the party tries to find its footing in Trump’s second term and wrestle away control of both houses of Congress from Republicans.
But in the time since Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris in ۲۰۲۴, Democratic divisions have only grown deeper. Establishment and self-described moderates within the party have struggled to hold back a rising tide of progressive populism as voters increasingly demand stronger, bolder policies.
That movement, powered by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, has forced a reckoning over what it means to be a Democrat in Trump’s second term, leading to significant differences among candidates on policies that often depend on where they are running.
Here’s how – and why – the party has shifted:
Democrats’ shifting views on Israel
The most notable shift among Democrats has, arguably, been on Israel.
Three years after Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza and killed more than ۷۴,۰۰۰ Palestinians following Hamas’s October ۷, ۲۰۲۳, attacks, polls have suggested that Americans hold increasingly negative views on Israeli military actions.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year suggested that ۶۰ percent of US adults had an unfavourable opinion of Israel. That number is significantly higher – ۸۰ percent – among US Democrats.
In response, some longtime Democratic supporters of Israel – including Senator Chris Coons, who is likely to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats retake control of the Senate next month – have shifted, as voters, especially younger ones, demand greater accountability from the US ally.
The moderate Delaware Democrat told Politico in an interview this month that he wants a “thorough reexamination” of the US-Israeli relationship and is even willing to impose sanctions on Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is a marked change in tone after Harris rejected calls to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the ۲۰۲۴ Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Earlier this year, ۴۰ Democratic senators voted in support of a motion that disapproved proposed military sales to Israel. Only seven Democratic senators voted with Republicans to block it.
But as a new Congress may include even more progressive voices demanding the US rethink its relationship with Israel, those calls would likely be met with stiff resistance from some in the Democratic leadership, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The New York Democrat, who would likely become majority leader if Democrats retake the Senate, has said that the US “commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad”.
Have Democrats changed their positions on transgender rights?
Following years of attacks from Republicans, Democrats in tightly contested US House or Senate races have downplayed – or outright dismissed – support for the transgender community, mostly when it comes to the participation of transgender students in school sports.
In Ohio, Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur ran an advertisement featuring her saying, “Boys should not play in girls’ sports”. And in North Carolina, Representative Don Davis released a television commercial in which the Democrat says there “should always be a safe and fair space for women and girls in sports”.
Next door in South Carolina, Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews, a doctor, said in a newly released advertisement that she opposes “biological men playing in women’s sports”.
Trump’s return to the White House was fuelled, in part, by a now-famous advertisement in the ۲۰۲۴ campaign that highlighted Harris’s support for transgender Americans.
“Kamala is for they/them,” a narrator said in the advertisement, referring to gender neutral pronouns used by some in the transgender and nonbinary community. “President Trump is for you.”
But the reassessment of transgender rights after the commercial’s airing is not taking place in every part of the party.
On Thursday at a “Students vs Billionaires” town hall in Portland, Maine, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed concerns from a transgender college student who told the New York progressive that they felt “abandoned” by Democrats.
“They’re wrong”, Ocasio-Cortez said about some members of her party. “First and foremost, I want to just let you know how shameful and sorry I am that there are people out there that scare so easily after an election”.
The congresswoman added, “The moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen.”
What has changed on immigration and border security?
During former US President Joe Biden’s term, Democrats encountered near-daily attacks from Republicans on the country’s immigration system.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than ۸ million encounters at the US-Mexico border between ۲۰۲۱ and ۲۰۲۵, fuelling concerns among some voters that the Biden administration had ignored the issue.
In Texas’s closely watched Senate race, candidate James Talarico has positioned himself as a “border security Democrat”, advocating for stronger border enforcement and comprehensive immigration reform.
Third Way, a US-based organisation that pushes for moderate policies, said stances like Talarico’s resonate better with voters because they have taken a proactive, rather than a reactionary approach.
“I remember very clearly when Harris came out and spoke at the DNC in ۲۰۲۴; she… said we need order at the border and to have a strong immigration system”, Third Way’s senior political adviser, Lucas Holtz, told Al Jazeera.
“The problem is, after that, the Harris campaign really did not stick with that line in the sand… They stopped taking a stand on these issues, and more voters thought that she was too far to the left.”
“[Talarico] is making the case in a lot of his ads that the Biden administration failed on securing the border… It’s putting Republicans on their back foot in some of these races.”
But among progressives, Trump’s response to the nation’s immigration issue has also prompted a strong swing to the left.
After several high-profile incidents earlier this year – including federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shooting dead US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti – calls to abolish, or drastically overhaul, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gained momentum.
Left-leaning political groups and politicians have united behind a message of “abolish ICE”, which would dismantle the federal agency and end its enforcement authority.
Do Democrats support Medicare for All?
As cost-of-living issues remain paramount for voters, Democrats of all stripes have coalesced behind the need for more government intervention in the country’s healthcare system.
But how exactly the party addresses rising medical costs remains up for debate.
Some progressives, including Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, have championed policies like Medicare for All, which would expand the nation’s federal health insurance programme for seniors so all US citizens would be guaranteed healthcare.
Others running in more conservative states, like Andrews, have called for the return of Affordable Care Act subsidies that lapsed during Trump’s second term, as well as limits on health insurance companies’ profits.
Polling released by the independent health organisation KFF suggested that ۶۶ percent of US adults now support Medicare for All, a ۱۳-point increase from October ۲۰۲۰.
“Everybody’s going to have their own approach to this, but by and large, all Democrats want to move to a universal healthcare system in the best way possible”, Holtz said.
“We’re in agreement that we need to do better than what the Trump administration has done.”
