民主党人有理由乐观，但如果赢得中期选举，可能将面临棘手难题

Democrats have reason to be optimistic, but headaches could be waiting if they win the midterms

2026-10-14T16:15:36.949Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/14/politics/democrats-senate-candidates-midterms

If Democrats win the Senate next month, the chamber’s new swing voters will likely be an interesting cast.

They’ll be Democrats from states that voted for President Donald Trump by double digits, and who have distanced themselves from their party on transgender rights, oil drilling, immigration and even the left’s desire to scrutinize the Trump administration. And some of them are anxious to tout their willingness to work with the president.

Democratic leaders did a good job recruiting and helping nominate candidates with moderate brands whom voters seem to like. That’s helped them compete on a difficult map where the party needs to win at least two states Trump won by double digits to nab the majority.

But if Democrats nab that majority, the party will face a challenge in trying to balance the interests of some of these new moderate lawmakers with the demands of the base.

One of the most common issues where these moderate candidates have tacked to the right has been transgender athletes. Opposition to allowing transgender students to play on girls’ sports teams — or some version of that position — has been embraced by state Rep. Josh Turek in Iowa, state Rep. James Talarico in Texas, pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and physician Annie Andrews in South Carolina.

Both Talarico and Andrews had previously embraced a broader version of transgender rights and spoke out on behalf of that community.

But after Trump attacked Andrews using an anti-transgender slur, the South Carolina Democrat filmed a direct-to-camera ad in which she said, “I don’t support biological men playing women’s sports and I don’t support — and haven’t ever performed — gender surgery for minors.” She added in a debate on Sunday: “I don’t support gender surgery on minors.”

Hamilton added the same day on ABC’s “This Week”: “I believe that there are two biological genders.”

Another significant break from the national party has been on immigration.

“Democrats have failed on the border,” Andrews said at the debate. Talarico has said that “Joe Biden and his administration failed us on our southern border.” Alaska Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola has run an ad touting her votes breaking with her party on the border, including being one of just six House Democrats to symbolically condemn then-Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration’s border policies in 2024.

Turek has also repeatedly returned to that theme, including launching a new ad this week featuring a sheriff saying Turek “broke with his party and voted with Republicans to support law enforcement … and crack down on illegal immigration.” He indeed voted with just a few Democrats to make being in the country illegally a state crime in Iowa.

Other areas of separation are a bit more state specific.

One of Peltola’s big issues is increased oil and gas production. The Alaska Democrat also touts her “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

Hamilton has also decried the “war on domestic energy projects” The Kansas Democrat even said he’d consider a temporary diesel export ban, which Trump floated and then later ruled out, to hopefully lower prices (despite experts being skeptical of the idea). And Hamilton also recently suggested he’s not overly keen on some Democrats’ desire to investigate Trump administration officials — saying he instead prefers to institute “guardrails.”

“I’m not going to Washington to hold trials,” he told MS NOW. “I’m going to Washington to fight for the people of Kansas and make life better for them.”

That could seemingly be a problem if that kind of accountability becomes a major focus for a potential Democratic majority. (That would likely be where much of Democrats’ energy is devoted since it’s not as if they will be able to pass a far-ranging agenda with Trump still in office.)

At the same time, however, we don’t necessarily know how these situations will pan out. Just because Hamilton says holding trials won’t be his focus, that doesn’t necessarily mean he would oppose his party’s move toward that or other accountability from Trump officials.

Many of these Democrats are breaking with their party in potentially symbolic ways: They’re staking out a rhetorical difference without necessarily indicating that they would vote against the party on major issues that are likely to come up over the next two years.

There is some evidence that Americans have warmed to the Democratic Party as these kinds of candidates have led the charge. A Gallup poll this week showed the party’s favorable rating rising to 43% — up from the mid-30s last year and 8 points higher than Republicans’ favorability. And the percentage of Americans who said the Democratic Party is “too liberal” has declined from 55% in 2022 to 46% today.

But if Democrats do win either or both chambers in Congress, that new power could embolden the party’s left flank to try and assert themselves, leading to potential clashes within the party.

To some degree, that’s the new reality for Democrats. There are simply more red states than blue states these days, and Trump won 24 of the 50 states by double digits. So if Democrats don’t run the table in swing states, they need to run moderate candidates who can win in pretty red territory.

But that won’t make dealing with that tension any easier.

Many in the party’s base have agonized over the sway that moderate former Democratic senators like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona had as swing votes — and that Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman could have come next year.

And there could be more where that came from.