Donald Trump has wasted no time making his mark in his first week back in office, signing executive orders, delivering speeches and outlining his plans. Meanwhile, the Democrats are still absorbing their election loss in November and trying to chart a path forward. But despite the prevailing view that they are in trouble, their situation may not be as dire as it seems.
"This is one of the most misinterpreted elections in our last 75 years," said Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report. A well-known Washington analyst, Cook has provided independent commentary for decades and is widely followed by major US news outlets.
"Yes, Democrats are extremely disappointed that they lost the presidential election," he said, but pointed out that the party "picked up seats in the House of Representatives".
The Republicans still control the House after the 2022 midterms, holding 220 seats to the Democrats' 215. But while a majority requires 218 seats, the Republicans lost ground – dropping from 222 seats in 2022 – while the Democrats gained two.
"Democrats lost four seats in the Senate," Cook acknowledged. "But three of them were states that they probably shouldn't have had anymore. They were very, very red conservative Republican states, West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana."
Republicans now control the Senate with a 53-47 majority. But the election results were not a wipe-out. "Not a single governorship in the country changed parties. The state legislatures: very little happened. Same thing on Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State," he said.
The elections, Cook argued, were split into two different worlds. "One for president and one for everything else. And the everything else wasn't that bad at all for Democrats," he said.
Biden's loss was a "very focused, very targeted repudiation" of his presidency and the Biden-Harris administration.
"It was purely about the cost of living (which, under Biden, went up with a staggering 20 percent) and the border, but it did not contaminate or damage Democrats down ballot. It really didn't," Cook said.
Push to 'drain the swamp'
Trump has vowed to "drain the swamp" – his term for cutting back what he sees as a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy that slows down Washington politics.
"Eight years ago he had to find the swamp," said Cook. "He didn't know much about Washington at all, knew little about government.
"Today he knows more and has more loyal people surrounding him," he said, adding that Trump's attempts to overhaul the system could be more effective this time around.
But Trump faces a tight timeline. Midterm elections in November 2026 are just 20 months away.
"He only has a window of about two years to get things through Congress" because of the Republican Party's extremely narrow majority, Cook said.
"In 90 percent of midterm elections, the president's party loses seats. So the executive authority is really where he's going to have the biggest impact."
A multi-party system?
A recent study in The New York Times proposed an alternative to the current two-party system, which dominates US politics. A Pew Research Centre poll found that "nearly half of younger adults say they wish there were more parties to choose from".
The newspaper suggested a six-party system, with a "Progressive Party" representing Bernie Sanders supporters, a "New Liberal Party" for market-friendly but socially liberal Democrats, and a "New Populist Party" for those between the Democratic and Republican mainstream.
On the Republican side, the proposal imagined a "Growth and Opportunity Party" for traditional market-friendly conservatives, a "Patriot Party" for Trump’s MAGA movement, and a "Christian Conservative Party" for fundamentalist Christians.
Cook, however, is doubtful.
"There are lots of ways you could divide up the American people. But there are very few true independents out there," he said. "The Republican side has become more populist with scorning any kind of elitism, expertise.
"You can agree or disagree with a lot of what Trump does, but it's more populist than conservative. And absolutely different from the tradition that you saw with any previous Republican president or presidential nominee that we've had."
Cook added that the US "has never been as bitterly divided since the Civil War as it is today", making a shift to a multi-party system unlikely.
What lessons did the Democrats learn from the presidential defeat?
This is one of the most misinterpreted elections on the last 75 years.
Charlie Cook
"I haven't seen many signs that Democrats have learned any lessons at all," Cook said. "In 2020, Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination because he wasn't Bernie Sanders. And he won the general election because he wasn't Donald Trump.
"Biden thought he had won a landslide and took it as an authorisation to do a very ambitious legislative agenda. People described it as historic, transformational, compared it to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, when he had the authorisation to not be Donald Trump."
But Cook said the same dynamic is now at play with Trump.
"Whenever a party wins a narrow victory, but pretends they won by a landslide and governs as if they had won by a landslide, that party is in grave danger," he said.
"Biden did that in 2020, and Trump is doing that right now. And there's very likely to be a political price paid."
