A pollster for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign urgently urged senior Democrats on Friday to stop focusing all their anger on President-elect Donald Trump and instead claim he is hurting them, saying he needs to be confronted much differently than he was during his first term. Voter’s Notebook.
Molly Murphy’s speech, delivered at the Democratic National Committee’s first post-election leadership meeting, amounted to a quiet rebuke of the party’s long-standing approach to Trump. It was also one of the most candid conversations senior party officials have broadcast publicly since Trump’s election.
“The 2025 playbook cannot be the 2017 playbook,” she said.
Addressing the DNC Executive Committee at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington, D.C., she said most Americans support Trump’s transition and that voters “don’t care who he appoints to his cabinet.”
She said that although President Trump may not be as well-regarded as President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama when he took office, he will be more popular than when he began his first term. She has emphasized for years that Trump’s strength is that voters support his economic policies, and that Democrats should aim for a second term to change that.
“These voters are saying, ‘I’ll allow him to do outrageous things if it lowers my costs,’” she said.
She pointed out that key members of the party’s base, including young people, Latinos and black voters, have defected from the Democratic Party in this election. And Murphy said that was driven by high prices, arguing that working-class voters have steadily shifted away from Democrats over several election cycles, suggesting it’s not just because of inflation.
She argued that Democrats are focusing on the wrong issues. Of young people and voters of color, she said, “Institutions have failed them. They may not accept Trump, who wants to dismantle those institutions, but they certainly don’t oppose him.”
She also warned Democrats to “be careful,” attacking Trump for violating norms, arguing that while Democratic donors and primary voters care about these issues, the voters the party lost in November do not.
“The norms didn’t work for them. So we should not ask them to clutch their pearls,” she said. “We run the risk of sounding like hall monitors.”
Murphy’s speech also highlighted that Democrats are betting that Trump will not keep his promise to quickly cut costs, and that this could help them return to power. She said Democrats should reorient their message to align with Trump’s plan to cut taxes on the wealthy, enact broad tariffs that could result in higher costs for consumers and provide “giveaways” to big companies.
Murphy’s announcement is the latest sign that many Democrats across the party, from strategists to elected officials, are planning a new approach than the one used when Trump first took office and the “resistance” blossomed.
