Following any election, both Democrats and Republicans carefully study their successes and failures. Following the 2024 election, Democrats are likely spending most of their time looking at the latter.

Across the country, Democrats amassed a smaller share of votes in almost every county than they did in 2020 and have seen a severe drop off in registered voters.

Clark Thakuria, the president of the University of Massachusetts Democrats, said, “there’s a real urgency to get anybody that isn’t Republican right now into office to stop the damage that’s already been caused in the past nine months,” in regards to the current Trump administration.

“Democrats really need to try and unite on a standing front and agree on a new platform that’s different than 2024,” Thakuria said.

The University Democrats are trying to “open the floor for anybody to speak their mind, no matter what political views they have” and “give students that want to get active politically the resources they need to do that.”

Local partisan groups play an important role in supporting parties nationally and locally. They help canvas, fundraise and much more.

The University Democrats don’t officially endorse candidates. Thakuria said that they have candidates come to the club and explain their platform and answer questions from the members.

“For us to really work on [a candidate’s] campaign, they’ll have had to earn that from us,” Thakuria said.

However, the struggles faced by the grander, national party differ from that of the Massachusetts platform. In Massachusetts, Democrats are far from struggling since every congressional district voted blue. However, partisanship varies widely between the local, state and national levels.

Part of the struggle for the Democratic party is assembling a clear platform. Thakuria said that it is difficult for the Democrats to create a unifying platform “because of big money and because of the difference in constituents.”

Republicans have become largely unified behind President Donald Trump, allowing them to have a strong, singular platform. Republicans were also able to win the trust of most Americans on the key issues in the 2024 election, as seen in a 2024 nationally representative poll from American National Elections Studies (ANES), revealing the advantage that Republicans held.

The study shows that Democrats won on social issues such as abortion and climate change, but were unable to gain traction among the public because voters were still focused on the high inflation and migrant influx that occurred throughout the start of Biden’s term.

Public opinion can change quickly, however. The 2020 poll from ANES reveals a flipped picture of the one from 2024.

In this graph health care and race relations are the most important issues by far, and ones that Democrats won comfortably on. On the front of people’s minds in 2020 was the threat of Covid 19 as well as a reckoning with racial police violence following the killing of George Floyd. The data shows that people form political opinions based on what is happening currently and what the most salient issues are.

This analysis presents an important question to Democrats: was the loss in 2024 an inevitable consequence of the circumstances under which Biden came into office? After all, most incumbent governments across the world lost in 2024.

What may be especially worrying for some Democrats could be the mass red shift and losses among key Black and Hispanic constituents. Hispanic voters alone shifted from a 25 percent margin in favor of Democrats in 2020 to only a 3 percent margin in 2024. These shifts could be indicative of deeper issues within the party’s support.

Some feel that Democrats have lost the support of working-class people. Republicans won a majority of voters without a college degree and those earning under 100,000 dollars a year.

Many Democratic candidates who come from working class backgrounds are running for Democratic positions and challenging those in the Democratic establishment. The Democrat’s senate campaign arm, however, has continued to back incumbents.

New Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Ken Martin said that, “We’ve been winning since I’ve been chair, and we’re going to continue to win because we’re doing the things that help put us in a position to do that.”

It is hard to find a way forward in politics, but with the influence that Trump is wielding in American politics, many on the left feel it is necessary for Democrats to win big in 2026.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “ [Democrats] have no choice but to be successful in the midterms.”

Thakuria said that the DNC needs to be more personable toward voters in order to achieve greater success in future elections.

“The way the Democrats should have campaigned this year is by creating jobs by investing in communities,” Thakuria said. “It’s not that [social issues] aren’t important, it’s that people are going to think about themselves the most and their families the most.”

While national politics can seem very distant, every level of involvement plays a necessary role in shaping the politics of America and the parties that make up the country. Thakuria said that the future of the party is decided in part by the input of local groups.

“Getting involved on an individual basis in a campaign that you really believe in or just sticking up for what’s right in not just big but small social settings, like with close friends, is the strongest political activism you can have,” Thakuria said.

Ethan Walz can be reached at [email protected].