Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter with the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, political reporter Alexandra Marquez reports from the Democratic Governors Association’s annual meeting, where the party’s state leaders were full of concerns and ideas about how to handle future elections. Plus, we dive into the math of the Senate and what it means that the Democratic class of 2006 has largely disappeared or lost seats.
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Democratic governors want to set a different tone for their party in a second Trump administration
By Alexandra Marquez
Democrats are still reeling and reflecting on what went so wrong for their party this year. But at the annual meeting of Democratic governors in California, they fully agreed that something needs to change before their party — and in their eyes, hopefully one of them — has a real shot at the White House in 2028.
“We can worry about who we run for president later [in 2028] or policy adjustments,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told NBC News, adding that for now, Democrats must “lay the groundwork, build the infrastructure and elect a DNC chairman who is committed to doing just that.”
And amid a pitch to rededicate the party to a focus on improving voters’ daily lives, tackling key issues like inflation, health care, infrastructure, transportation and education, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear warned Democrats against a major obstacle to their ambitions for redefinition. : President-elect Donald Trump.
During the last Trump administration, people focused “too much on Trump and what was happening in DC, and not enough on [Democratic] priorities,” Beshear said.
“Don’t get into an us-versus-them battle,” he said. “It’s not a winning strategy.”
At other levels of the party — including among some of the “resistance” activist groups that rose to prominence during Trump’s first term — there is already broad agreement that Democrats cannot respond to Trump in the same way they did eight years ago.
But some of the most prominent governors, who happen to be among those mentioned as potential presidential candidates, quickly moved after his election to position their states as bulwarks against Trumpism. California Governor Gavin Newsom called a special legislative session, while Illinois Governor JB Pritzker talked about how to “strengthen” his state against Trump.
Others in purple and red states have taken less aggressive stances. At the Democratic Governors Association meetings, Beshear and fellow Democratic Red State Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas said they would look for space to work with Trump on areas that would benefit their constituents.
Read more →
The Democrats’ famous Senate class of 2006 is all but gone. This is why it matters.
By Mark Murray
The celebrated Democratic Senate class of 2006—the six Senate Democrats who flipped seats from the Republican Party during the midterm cycle—has fueled the Democratic majority over the past two decades, contributing to the party’s legislative performance in the next fifteen years and included several of the Democratic members of the Senate. biggest electoral overachievers in the most challenging states.
Now, after the 2024 elections, only one of the six will remain in the Senate starting next year: Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
This exhaustion tells an important story about the geographic transformation in American politics over the past two decades, and highlights the Democratic Party’s challenging path back to the Senate majority after their defeats in November.
The first member of the class of 2006 to leave was Jim Webb of Virginia, who decided not to seek re-election in 2012 — but whose seat remained in Democratic hands, along with Tim Kaine.
The next to go was Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who won re-election in 2012 but lost six years later in 2018.
And in 2024, three more members of that vaunted class lost when Donald Trump carried their states: Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
Senate Democrats started the 21st century with victories in states such as Missouri, Montana and Ohio. (Equally important, Republicans held Senate seats in places like Rhode Island and Virginia.) Now? It seems unfathomable how Democrats in these three states could win statewide federal elections, not to mention those in West Virginia and North Dakota.
And that reality underscores Democrats’ challenge to win back the Senate in 2026 or 2028 — and beyond. After the recent elections, the party controls all but one of the Senate seats in every state that Kamala Harris held. (The only outlier? Susan Collins in Maine.) Democrats also hold 10 of the 14 Senate seats in the seven key presidential swing states.
Yet this brings them to only 47 seats in the Senate. Even if they defeat Collins and flip the four other Senate seats in the battleground states (two in North Carolina, one in Wisconsin, one in Pennsylvania) while keeping the others, that amounts to a maximum of 52 seats. If Democrats want more than that, they’ll need it. to find out how to win again in places like Missouri, Ohio, and other now reliably red states.
There’s another important story about the Democratic class of 2006: Early in the election cycle, few observers thought Democrats could flip more than a few Senate seats, let alone six.
But the unpopularity of the Iraq War and the administration of George W. Bush made the Senate battlefield much bigger than initially expected.
That reminds us that no political map stays in place forever. It always changes.
🗞️Today’s top stories
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🐘 RNC you later: Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, announced she will step down as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, amid mounting speculation that she could be picked to fill an upcoming Senate vacancy. And the RNC treasurer announced a bid to replace her. Read more →
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⚫ Threats to lawmakers: Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said she and her family were the targets of a bomb threat and local police are working with the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate. Read more →
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⚖ Court watching: The Supreme Court sidestepped a new dispute over race in education by not examining whether a public high school admissions program in Boston unlawfully considered race. Read more →
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✅❎ Fact check: Here’s a look at a fact-check of Trump’s wide-ranging interview with “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Read more →
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🏨 He’s a businessman and a company, man: Trump will return to the White House next year with a bigger business empire than during his first term, but he and his team have not provided details on how — or if — he will separate his business interests from his work as president. Read more →
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A somber commemoration: President Joe Biden announced plans to create a monument in Pennsylvania to commemorate the federal government’s oppression of thousands of Native American children in boarding schools. Read more →
For now, that all comes from the Political Bureau. If you have any feedback – like it or not – please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
