NEWT GINGRICH: Democrats could get an alarming wake-up call in 2026 election
Despite all the current polling and the constant comments of the professional analyst class, the Democrats have the biggest problems going into the 2026 election.
People know they have unpopular values. Their big government socialist models of taxing, spending and bureaucracy don’t work. The Democrats’ key institutions have long histories of performance failure. And the dominance of the hard left in the Democratic Party forces Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries into painfully tone-deaf positions. It all represents a huge burden, weakening the likelihood of a major Democratic victory this fall.
Consider some of the burdens the Democrats will be carrying as they campaign this summer and fall.
As America’s New Majority Project polling showed, Americans are deeply opposed to tax increases (77% oppose tax increases for the middle class specifically). Yet every single Democrat in the House and Senate voted against tax cuts (and in favor of the largest tax increase in history). This simple, verifiable fact will loom large in September and October.
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Americans are deeply opposed to letting males in girls’ locker rooms — or crowding out women in sports (66%). Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to government taking control of children without involving the parents (73%). For some reason, transgenderism is a major value in the Democratic Party, and Democrats are overwhelmingly tied to policies and values that Americans reject by about 4:1.
Democrats feel ideologically and psychologically compelled to favor protecting illegal immigrants over controlling the border. They favor criminals over strengthening the police. And they support more open borders over the unique success the Trump administration has had in controlling the borders.
As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, at least 40% of Democrats report that they are ashamed of America. They regard the Founding Fathers as bad people who owned slaves, discriminated against women and stole the country from Native Americans.
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This lack of patriotic solidarity shows itself in votes involving Venezuela, Iran, and even the sinking of boats carrying drugs into America. With the exception of Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman, elected Democrats are virtually unanimous in putting partisanship above patriotism and seeking to undermine President Donald Trump overseas rather than help America’s position.
The Democrats are also weakened by personality and corruption.
In personality contests, you could hardly help the Republicans more than by matching Schumer up against Senate Leader John Thune. Schumer comes across as old, tired and out-of-touch. He has spent so many years in Washington, he speaks in an insider language that simply does not reach most Americans.
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The current fight over funding the Department of Homeland Security is a case study in Democrats’ tone deafness about the concerns of the American people. To some Democratic leftwing strategist isolated in Washington or New York, it may seem clever and courageous to cut off funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to put pressure on Trump.
However, the 13-year veteran of "the Apprentice" in the White House sees chaos and long lines at airports as a threat to Democrats — not Republicans.
Millions of traveling Americans are finding their lives made more difficult by Senate Democrats. That the Democrats don’t understand this suggests they are so disconnected that they could become a long-term minority party for a generation or more (the Republican fate in failing to understand how big a change President Franklin D. Roosevelt represented in 1932).
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Separately, for 94 years the Democrats have been the party of big government, bureaucracy and interest groups who get their money from government. As government has grown larger, the opportunities for fraud and theft have grown greater. Minnesota represents this kind of performance failure that will weaken the Democrats.
One estimate suggests that $400 billion a year is stolen from the federal government, adding up to more than $4 trillion over the next decade.
Numbers this size numb most of us because they are too big to comprehend.
The Minnesota scandal certainly qualifies ($9 billion to $16 billion) but the mechanics of theft were simple enough that most Americans understand it. The more investigators dig into Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s administration and its refusal to listen to whistleblowers — and the more government appears complicit with the corruption — the greater the vulnerabilities for Democrats. The fact that Walz was the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee just adds to the Democrats’ vulnerability as the party of favoritism and corruption.
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The combination of these facts could implode the Democratic Party — if the Republicans can run a smart, aggressive, campaign of contrast and choice in 2026.
In campaign planning, you must distinguish between what people say pre-campaign (when the liberal media has spent months communicating its version of reality) and how they vote after they have been communicated with during a campaign.
Campaigns matter — and people do change their minds and attitudes.
I suspect 2026 is going to be this kind of year.