Dems Huffing the Hopium

FOR A PARTY PERPETUALLY anticipating doom and engaging in acts of self-destruction, Democrats have, in recent weeks, grown shockingly optimistic about the state of the midterms.

It’s not just that the party expects to win back control of the House or even make a serious play for the Senate. No, no. Those are the aspirations of the mere mid-tier dreamers. The chatter among the party bulls these days is of flipping states once thought entirely out of reach; of unseating GOP incumbents once thought untouchable; of election waves that rival some of the most memorable in recent history.

“Democrats were always viewed as having a good shot at taking the House this cycle. But I think a lot of folks thought it would be a modest gain,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster. “Instead of being 15 or 20, maybe it’s 35 or 40 in terms of the actual seats that are in play here. I think the margin could be a lot bigger than we would have thought.”

As for the Senate? “Six months ago, you really had to squint to see how Democrats could take the majority,” said McCrary. “Now, I think it’s a very straightforward path—and a very plausible and realistic path that Democrats can get to 51 or 52 [seats]. And maybe there’s even an upper end of that as well.”

Some context may be helpful here. McCrary is hardly the type of operative to offer an overly optimistic outlook just to be a good party cheerleader; he lives in a deep-red district in Alabama and knows the danger of Democrats getting their hopes up on races they have no chance of winning. Not so long ago he was telling me that the Senate was almost certainly out of reach. But he’s among a growing number of Democrats who are allowing themselves to get buzzed on a little bit of electoral hopium.

And, frankly, why not? There are plenty of signs that Americans aren’t feeling great about the direction of the country. Despite a stronger than expected March jobs report, consumer sentiment is declining. Young people are stressed about job opportunities. Families are wondering how they’re going to tighten their budgets to pay for rising gas prices. And Americans are deeply worried about finding affordable health care. Not to mention the unnerving prospect of getting bogged down in yet another conflict in the Middle East.

As my Bulwark colleague Catherine Rampell noted last week, it’s not difficult for Democrats to tie these anxieties to President Donald Trump’s policy decisions—from his war of choice in Iran to his Medicaid cuts to his tariffs.

“If you were trying to actively shipwreck the Republican party in 2026, candidly, I don’t know what he’d been doing differently,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who served as the political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2014 and 2016.

In my conversations with Democratic officials, there was a general consensus that the party’s strength in the midterms was being underestimated and that the ceiling is much higher than they thought even just a few weeks ago.

“This cycle very well might be more like a 1974 post-Watergate cycle, where voters are saying ‘burn the ships,’” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties and is now running as a Democrat for governor of Florida.

Jolly certainly needs to pray for a ’74-like climate—in which Democrats gained 48 House seats in the midterms—owing to Florida’s dramatic rightward tilt over the past few cycles. But even if he doesn’t win his statewide race, there are real possibilities that fellow Democrats will make inroads elsewhere in the state. Already, the party has seen major gains.

On the congressional level, Democrats need to flip 4 seats to retake the Senate; Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he views North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska as the most winnable. In the House, the party needs a net of just 3 seats and the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee has identified 44 districts it believes are in play this year.

Those are relatively straightforward propositions. But lately Democrats have been asking themselves whether they should be thinking bigger—and acting more boldly.

“When there’s a wave, odd things can happen. Long shots can become competitive,” said Simon Rosenberg, perhaps the party’s most rosy-eyed operative. “A month ago, we would have said the Senate is competitive, and the Democrats had a shot. But we now have Democrats ahead in states that get us to 51 [seats],” he said, alluding to