Dem strategist warns of party's future after election loss: 'Our brand is weak'

If the Democratic party wants to win future elections, it needs a major overhaul, says a strategist who helped Obama win Florida in 2008.

Steve Schale, CEO of Unite the Country, wrote in a Substack post for The Bulwark on Wednesday that it is time to stop discussing 2024.

"The true discussion is about how my party, which had the broadest electoral mandate in the previous twenty-five years and the largest Senate majority in the previous thirty years, has diminished to a mere shell of its former self—a political organization that barely qualifies as a national entity," he said.

In the 2024 elections, the Democratic Party faced significant losses across the board, with President-elect Trump winning re-election and the GOP gaining control of the Senate and maintaining their slim majority in the House.

If Democrats failed to make "real structural changes," they would continue to lose in Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, Schale warned.

He proposed allocating more funds towards early advertising campaigns on crime and the economy, as well as establishing a strong online presence to counter the right's dominance in podcasts and social media by creating their own ecosystem to disseminate information to their target audience.

If the party doesn't broaden its coalition, Schale said these strategies won't work.

We got here because our brand is not good. We categorize voters into different groups, such as black, Hispanic, young, gay, etc., and assume that they are more progressive than they actually are, and that they are unique from one another. At the same time, we have made decisions to stop communicating with a significant portion of the electorate.

He argued that the party should resume investing in all 50 states.

"However, we face a larger issue," Schale stated. "Although we may succeed in elections with the right conditions, we no longer possess a long-term winning coalition."

The Democratic Party has been losing blue-collar White voters and Hispanic voters due to their "socialism talk" in recent election cycles.

"Despite many people protesting, the Biden campaign largely ignored the issues arising from the extreme left's rhetoric. As a result, the narrative became established," he stated.

To win future elections, the Democratic Party must appeal to the "median" voter who is not a partisan, according to him.

He stated that we have witnessed the consequences of not paying attention to voters, when we prioritize maintaining our base rather than broadening it, and when we take our message beyond the norm.

If we redefine our values for voters who have stopped listening, we will set ourselves up nicely for the next decade. However, if we get it wrong, we could be in the wilderness for a very long time, as Schale concluded.

Planet Chronicle' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.