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As Democratic Party leaders gathered in Los Angeles for their annual winter meetings this week, for the first time in a long time the mood was warm.
Optimism coursed through the hotel ballrooms, following a string of double-digit wins in off-year elections last month. Democratic National Committee members flocked to California Gov. Gavin Newsom — a likely presidential contender — for selfies and major donors are resurfacing after a period of hibernation. Conan O’Brien, Jane Fonda and Shonda Rhimes joined Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for a major donor gathering, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. And Nebraska and Utah officials are among those expressing interest in hosting the party's novel midterm mini-convention next year, according to three people briefed on the conversations.
“The party, broadly, is just feeling like they got their sea legs back,” Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles. “And they’re winning and winning solves a lot of problems.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin nodded to the vibe shift in his own remarks Friday: "I can tell you, it's a much different feel in this room than a few months ago,” he said.
But for all the energy at the DNC’s winter meeting, Democrats are still confronting challenges. The committee’s finances are shaky at best, badly trailing their Republican counterparts. The committee has yet to release its 2024 autopsy in full, as Democrats continue to argue over why the party lost so resoundingly last year. A proxy battle looms over the presidential primary calendar, as several states continue to lobby DNC members on the sidelines of this week’s meetings.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris was warmly received when she addressed the convention Friday night, but her return to the national stage, fresh off a controversial book release, is also a reminder of the party’s fractured response to its sweeping losses in 2024, when Donald Trump defeated her in every swing state on his way to becoming president.
On Friday, Harris gave DNC members a reality check by delivering her most expansive diagnosis yet of what she sees as the country's broken political system. “We must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than reality,” she said.
Most pressingly, the DNC faces serious financial problems. In October, it took out a $15 million loan, framed by the party as a financing investment into the New Jersey and Virginia elections that Democrats ended up dominating. While not unprecedented, it was a larger sum of money earlier in the cycle than is typical. The committee's loan also brings the Republicans' cash advantage into sharp relief — the Republican National Committee has $88 million more in the bank when accounting for the debt, according to November’s Federal Elections Commission filings.
And some party members still want answers from the committee’s self-diagnosis for what went wrong in 2024.
The DNC still hasn’t released its long promised post-election report, after earlier saying it wouldn’t come before last November’s elections. They have so far only shared initial findings with top Democrats at the committee’s national finance meeting in October. The preliminary findings, which a DNC aide insisted at the time were incomplete, criticized Democrats for not investing resources early enough, while ignoring discussion of former President Joe Biden’s age. But some DNC members are looking for more answers.
“It’s very hard for an organization to self criticize, so you need to keep the pressure up to make them do it,” said Eric Croft, the chair of the Alaska Democratic Party. “They said they’d do it. We’re going to make sure that they do.”
But things of late are looking much rosier. Democrats are cheered by their double-digit victories in New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races last month, as well as a slew of other off-year and special elections in which their candidates outperformed their 2024 margins. They even denied the GOP its supermajority in the Mississippi state senate. Public polling suggests the wind is at their backs in the 2026 midterms.
DNC members estimated the electoral momentum will help with fundraising.
“People are ready to open their wallets up now that they’ve realized what they’ve voted for,” said Manny Crespin, Jr., a committee member from New Mexico. “Now that they’ve realized it’s actually affecting their pocketbook, they’re going to do everything they can to reverse that.”
One of the biggest decisions ahead for the DNC will play out in a little-known yet powerful panel, the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is charged with setting the 2028 presidential primary calendar. States have until Jan. 16 to apply to be in the early window, but the behind-the-scenes jockeying for a spot has continued, several DNC members said privately.
“All of the early states are trying to lay their groundwork to get the committee to back them,” said a Democratic operative who attended the DNC meeting. “There’s a bit of a proxy war brewing on this.”
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