October 14, 2025

With less than a month away from the 2025 elections, the 2026 midterms are on my mind — and clearly, they are on yours as well. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the midterm elections and my call for the building of a new long-term opposition movement. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to address how these two fit topics together.

Over the last several months I have written and spoken out extensively about the need to move beyond a temporary resistance towards a more durable opposition movement. Unlike in 2021, it is now clear that Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has not only corrupted the entire GOP, but it is doing permanent damage to our government institutions, the rule of law, and pillars of civil society. 

Combatting this existential threat to democracy will require a long-term sustainable opposition. In the coming days, I will have more to say about what that looks like. But for now, we should assume it will extend beyond 2026 and likely well past 2028.

In the meantime, to effectuate this opposition movement, we must start with prioritizing winning elections. Too many on the left are happy to participate in policy development and debate, but blanch at getting involved in partisan politics. Yet, unless we elect Democrats to office, and win control of Congress in 2026, all the other work will be for naught.

Conservatives have always been more comfortable with prioritizing electoral victories over policy disputes. Recall that after the 2008 elections, Democrats controlled the White House as well as large margins in the House and Senate. The Party was bubbling with enthusiasm and excitement. 

Republicans, and their conservative allies, were grappling with what went wrong. The party brand was in tatters. They had an unpopular president exiting the office leaving an unpopular war behind. 

Yet, instead of looking inward, they strategized and schemed about how to retake power. Large GOP financial backers like the Koch brothers helped launch the Tea Party movement. Republicans in Congress locked arms against President Obama and threw their energy into obstruction. In short, Republicans made it their mission to rebrand and relaunch the Party into a new era. 

In the end they succeed in ways they maybe didn’t even expect. There has been and always will be a lot written about how the conservative movement managed to hand the GOP to Donald Trump and the anti-democracy movement. But what is most important is that their success — and in their eyes, this is a success — didn’t happen spontaneously overnight. But it did happen by prioritizing elections over everything else.

Now, I’m not saying progressives and Democrats can or should follow this exact playbook. However, we can learn that building a lasting opposition movement, starts with elections and a few simple lessons: 

We need to understand that election rules matter to the outcome.

From voting laws to redistricting to campaign finance rules, Republicans have prioritized changing the rules to benefit themselves. Rigging maps through midcycle redistricting is only one of the GOP’s tactics. Making it harder for people to vote by mail is another. Later this year, I will be arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court to defend against a GOP challenge to a critical campaign finance law. We need to understand these rules and how they impact not only democracy in theory but elections on the ground. We need to commit the time, energy and resources to ensure fair rules and that honest elections are properly certified in 2026.

We need to step up with energy, conviction, and belief in our party. 

We cannot afford to be weak, and we don’t have time to wallow. I know we’ve said this before, but it continues to be true: we are heading toward the most important midterm election of our lifetime. If we want to win in 2026, 2028, and beyond, we need to leave the defeats of 2024 behind. We will not win in 2026 by proving that we were right in 2024. We will not defeat Republicans, if we spend all our energy fighting with other Democrats. Most importantly, we cannot win elections by attacking our party rather than the GOP.

We need to be team players that support each other. 

We have powerful voices on our side who have stepped into this moment. We also have a strong party with a deep bench and it’s time for us to activate it. But to do that, we all need to be part of the same team. We can’t be split on strategy. We must have faith and trust in each other. Most importantly, we must be aligned on the primary goal: defeat Donald Trump and save democracy. We are stronger together than we are apart. 

We can’t be the party that reacts. 

We need to be proactive. We need to take charge against Republican tyranny, fascism, and attacks on democracy. If we’re simply reacting to every move Trump makes, we are going to lose our country. Any tennis coach will tell you to anticipate your opponent’s next move. Any chess master will tell you the same. We must be chess masters and tennis champions. It’s time we catch Republicans off-guard. It’s time they’re reacting to us. 

If we build an effective opposition movement now, we will have the strength in numbers to defend our democracy and win the midterms. Then, we will have the momentum going into 2028. There is a lot riding against us, but I believe in the foundation we have built, and I believe in the American people. If we work together and link arms through these heavy rains and winds, I have hope that we will brave the storm that’s coming.