Dem Consultants Have Some Advice for Rebuilding Their Party

It’s been nearly five months since President Donald Trump’s Election Day victory, and Democrats are still debating how to rebuild after former Vice President Kamala Harris’ stinging loss. 

There are signs that their early efforts to rehab its brand are falling flat with voters. A CNN poll released earlier this month found the Democratic Party’s favorability rating plunging to just 29 percent – a record low for the party. 

Three Democratic consultants sat for a panel discussion at the 2025 Reed Awards in Austin, Texas last week to share their thoughts on what their party needs to do next.

Ansley Mendelson, Vice President at CN4 Partners:

Mendelson said that, if Democrats want to rebuild their brand, it’s time to start thinking smaller.

“I think that we meet this moment by going very small, organizing hyper locally, helping people figure out what is a thing they can fix in their community,” Mendelson said. “And by fixing a thing in their community, by solving a problem in their community, you feel like government is working again.” 

In other words, Mendelssohn said, it’s about “trying to connect the dots for people that government – while it’s a mess up in D.C. – your state and local governments can still work for you.”

Sarah Flowers, Partner at 76 Words:

Flowers agreed with Mendelson’s suggestion that Democrats start focusing on smaller fights. But instead of pouring time and resources into local efforts, she said that her party needs to “flood the zone.”

“My instinct for small is talking about more concrete things a lot more,” Flowers said. “There is something very successful to the ‘flood-the zone-option.’ And I think it is something that feels instinctively hard to Democrats.”

If the Trump administration breaks government contracts with farmers, for example, Democrats need to talk about “how, if farmers aren’t putting soy beans into the ground right now, that means we’re not going to have the crops that we anticipate,” Flowers said.

“We need to be talking about a bunch of different examples at that kind of very concrete, small level,” she added. “And I think that that’s what we need to be seeing happen a lot more in social media spaces, a lot more on television – television still has a very, very big role – and it should happen on podcasts.”

Garrett Arwa, Senior Vice President and Head of Political at Bryson Gillette:

Arwa said that Democrats are going to have to convince voters that government can still be a tool for creating positive change.

“Unless we are going to be the party of limited government – communities need to make decisions, there are certain things that should come above the laws that we create – we have to win back the narrative that governments and people working together can be effective tools for public good and that public good is needed,” he said.

Winning that argument, Arwa said, is likely going to require Democrats to step out of their comfort zone – something he acknowledged his party often struggles with. He argued that while Republicans are consistently willing to test out new messages, Democrats have a tendency to be “overly orchestrated, overly tested.”

“[Republicans] are not smarter than us,” Arwa said. “They are imbued with strategic patience and they will try a bunch of things…while we’re focused on ROI and ‘cost per this’ and ‘efficiency here.’ ”

“Cost per what means nothing if you lose,” he added. “I think we just need to try a bunch of things and we need to have the courage to try things that may fly in the face of our traditional orthodoxy.”