David Hogg, Democratic National Committee Vice President, has promised a multi-million dollar campaign donation toward progressive candidates in the 2026 congressional elections. Faced with low approval numbers, is the Democratic party “failing to meet the moment”
The Democratic Party of the United States suffered a huge loss in the 2024 national and state elections.
Losing both houses in Congress and the presidential election, many have speculated about the potential cause of these sweeping defeats for Democrats.
However, criticism of the Democratic Party extends beyond their election losses, with current DNC leader David Hogg calling for progressives to challenge current Democratic congressional seats.
Another sign that the party seems to be struggling with messaging as they are coming up on the serious political moment of the 2026 congressional elections.
The Democratic members in Congress have met the Trump campaign with varying degrees of caution, concern, and, at times, forceful pushback against the Trump administration’s various affronts to federal and state systems.
In just a few weeks, the Trump administration has crashed stock prices and raised the cost of everyday items through an international tariff war.
In addition to weakening political/ security relations through their forceful tariffs policies, the Trump administration has also managed to have three security breach scandals in just the month of April. That is only to name a few of the headlines coming out of the Trump administrations first 100 days.
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Despite the many debacles coming from the Trump Adminstration in the last three months, the Democratic party can not seem to gain political favor.
In fact, the Democratic party is polling worse than they were after Trump’s election in 2016 amongst young voters according to the latest Harvard Youth polls.
This is a contiuantion of a concerning trend of lack of voter turn out amongst young people and overall dissastissfaction in the politcal landscape both in general and specifically with the Democratic party.
In addition the youth polled expressed distrust with both the current administration and the federal system in general.
The poll also showcased Trumps approval amongst young black americans continues to outpace his 2016 election. While this limited poll paints a grim picture for Democrat success in the upcoming election cycle, leadership in the Democraitc party are also expressing a need for a change.
Notably, Democratic National Committee Vice President David Hogg, has publicly promised to devote 20 million dollars in collaboration with his political action committee or PAC Leaders We Deserve in support of progressive candidates challenging democratic congressional seats in the 2026 elections.
This may not sound like a radical idea, but the Democratic National Committee encourages unity amongst the democratic party and though they claim to avoid bias towards any candidate, the DNC has historically been accused of favoring incumbents in congressional elections.
Leaders We Deserve has a website: https://leaderswedeserve.com/ that showcases their messaging and a diverse list of current local and state representatives that the Leaders We Deserve PAC supported in 2024.
In their website the Leaders We Deserve state their desire for fierce political voices on the national stage. In his own interviews Hogg has stated that the public perceives the Democrats as failing to “meet the moment”.
Hogg has received pushback from many notable figures in the Democratic Party. Hogg went so far as to claim that the Democratic National Committee might seek to change their bylaws to prevent Hogg from running this campaign while holding his position as a Vice-Chair of the DNC.
Hogg is not the only member of the Democratic party to call for leadership changes; however, earlier this year Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives Hakeem Jefferies proclaimed the DNC would be getting new leadership after current Democratic Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, voted with Republicans to cut 18 billion dollars in federal funding helping the Republican-lead Congress continue to fund the government as they seek to push through 800 billion dollars in federal funding cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
In all, these messaging issues appear to have a basis in reality, as voter turnout presents itself as a significant challenge in the 2026 election cycle. Across the state and at the federal level, legislators seek to diminish voting rights and increase the difficulty of voting for Americans.
The lack of participation in the youth bloc and the diminishing support in the black and Latino blocs of voting were a defining factor in the Republican victories in 2024.
So I will leave you with these questions: Is the Democratic party willing to forfeit control to younger, new-fashioned candidates? What messaging will break through for the democrats in the 2026 elections? Is the Democratic Party simply out of Time?
Next post I will be talking about political messaging. Whats working, whats not working, what people are ready to see. In that I will be talking about some recent elections, the social state of politics and podcasts.
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