Dems won the midterms. How should they work with Trump?

US Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-TX) speaks during a midterm election night event on November 3, 2026 in Austin, Texas. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Just days after big wins in the midterms, Democrats are celebrating historic victories. But what can we actually learn from these wins? 

David Axelrod is a Democratic strategist and the man behind Barack Obama’s two presidential victories. He’s not a senior political commentator at CNN. He’s spent decades figuring out how Democrats can win. 

On Wednesday, Axelrod joined America, Actually for a conversation with host Astead Herndon about what the blue wave in the midterms reveals about voters in the US right now, the powerful demographic shifts that are underway, and what Democrats need to do next to make good on the promises they made in their campaigns, all while Trump is still in the White House. 

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel.

Is this all about Trump’s unpopularity, or an endorsement of Democrats? I heard Rahm Emanuel say that he doesn’t read this as a vindication of Democrats, but as a repudiation of Republicans.

Does that distinction matter? And do we know if people were voting for Democrats or just against the administration?

I think every midterm election in some ways is a referendum on the incumbent party. That’s been true forever. And it’s almost always the case that the verdict is: not as good as we’d like. You know, this election is the one where the people in power have to put on a button saying, “How am I doing?”

And people get to tell them, and the answer was: really, really bad. 

Horrible! Two thumbs down. 

Really, really bad. And obviously it was a repudiation of the president. I think it was a real response to the same thing that drove the election as much as anything in 2024, which is costs and the fact that people are struggling in this economy. The thing that made this unusual was Trump was elected to lower these costs, and instead he made decisions that palpably raised them — the war, the tariffs.

I think it’s given Democrats a chance to prove that they are who they say they are and work on these issues of cost. And they’re crippled in the sense that if they don’t have a partner in the president, all they can do is try and pass legislation and do things to reduce those costs, but they need a partner to do it.

I don’t discount the fact that Trump may do a 180 on some things and be that partner.

It is an open question who the president becomes after all of this, considering he’s, you know, the nicest way to say it is ideologically flexible. Should Democrats come in thinking accountability? Should they come in thinking, find places of bipartisan alignment? Is the answer both?

Yeah, I think the answer is both. And it’s very tricky to strike that balance. And if the price of cooperation is to lay off of accountability, I don’t think that’s a deal they can make. 

But I look at the way Mayor Mamdani has handled his relationship with Trump. And there may be some instructive elements to that, because he’s certainly critical of the president. But he’s also found areas around housing, for example, on which they can work together. 

Here’s what I would say to Democrats: Be willing to work with him. And I think you’ll pay a price if you don’t. If he’s willing to help you, for example, on rolling back some of these cuts to the affordable healthcare subsidies or to Medicaid cuts. I think the country would actually embrace that kind of deal.

And for that reason, I think Trump may take it because I don’t think he gives a damn about the Republican Party. The Republican Party was just a vehicle for him, and now he’s mad at them — because he’s not going to blame himself for what happened on Tuesday.

You’ve mentioned the demographic shifts. They were universal. You talk about men, Latinos, Asian voters, young people, working-class people generally moving towards Democrats in numbers that were even larger than some polls expected. I was wondering: Did we write the obituary on the Obama coalition too early? Is it back?

I’m so allergic to this because I remember when we won. I remember people talking about the coalition of the ascendant. This is the coalition that’s going to govern.

Yeah, the governing majority to come.

The message is: It matters what you do.

Democrats took Hispanic voters, for example, for granted. And they paid a big price in 2024. Republicans took Hispanic voters for granted. And in each case they’re a constituency that is deeply responsive to economic circumstances. They’re getting hammered in this economy, as they were in 2024. They are also — in the main — socially conservative communities. I think both parties have been guilty sequentially in misreading this. 

By the way, everybody’s talking about who’s responsible for the Republican performance this year? I don’t think Stephen Miller is getting the credit that he deserved.

One hundred percent, yeah. 

The immigration overreach is core to the collapse with Latino voters. We heard about that through the year. And just generally shocking to the conscience of the American public.

Yes! There was a vote for decency here. Decency had a big day on Tuesday, and in that vein, it’s so interesting to me that Talarico, Hamilton, candidates like that, who very much preached the gospel of the brotherhood of man and of decency, wound up triumphing in places that you never thought Democrats could triumph. 

So that’s a long way of answering: I think what the Democratic coalition is and can be depends on what Democrats do now.