Kamala Harris is floating another presidential run. Eric Swalwell is forced out of Congress and the governor’s race amid a major sex scandal. And Democrats are heading into the 2026 midterms deeply divided between the concerns of everyday working Americans and far-left priorities. As of today, they admit, they have no clear leader or direction, and are struggling to define a post-Trump identity. The November elections will decide control of Congress and could shape the emerging 2028 presidential contest. Today, we survey the landscape of the as yet undetermined future of the Democrat party.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Sharyl: What do you see as happening in terms of the direction and how that could impact or pull at the Democrat party as a whole group that can have impact?

Rep. Seth Magaziner: I think what you’re seeing in the Democratic party now is a real turnover in leadership, right?

Congressman Seth Magaziner is a Democrat from Rhode Island.

Magaziner: But having some turnover and some change in leadership is a healthy thing. And you’re seeing that happen to the Democratic party. Now, it can be messy and it can be contentious at times, but ultimately it’s a good thing.

Much of the “messiness” comes from the party’s shift toward socialism and communism. Socialism and communism emerged in the early to mid-1800s followed by a long and disastrous string of failures: The “National Socialist German Workers’ party,” or Nazis, advocated to abolish earned income, and seize private property and industries, though historians today disavow the Nazis’ socialist links. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR was the world’s first communist country. Under the communist revolutionary Mao, there was China’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Cambodia under the radical communist party Khmer Rouge, Communist North Korea, Communist East Germany, Socialist Venezuela and Communist Cuba, together resulting in tens of millions of deaths from executions, starvation and political violence.

Not long ago, openly embracing ideologies linked to those disasters could end a Democrat’s career. Today, it’s increasingly worn as a badge of honor. In the U.S., Bernie Sanders is the only senator to openly identify as a democratic socialist. Once dismissed as a marginal figure, he proved remarkably popular when he challenged Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

The Democratic Socialists of America reports approximately 250 of its members or endorsed candidates now hold elected office across 40 states, with 90 percent elected in the past six years.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani (Nov. 4, 2025): And we must chart a new path.

Including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani (Nov. 4, 2025): I am young despite my best efforts to grow older, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist.

Rep. Chip Roy: I do think they’re certainly moving to a hard left position in their core leadership.

Chip Roy is a lead Republican in Congress.

Roy: I certainly think that we’ve seen some fairly extreme left candidates popping into the front of the Democrat party. We saw it obviously in New York with Mamdani. We saw it in the recent congressional election, even in, you know, Nashville, Tennessee. You know, there was no real gray area about where either of those candidates are coming from.

Many of today’s Democrat leaders stand behind extreme transgender policies, gender denial procedures for children; male access to female sports, bathrooms, and women’s prisons; and illegal immigration while opposing voter ID and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.

It’s a big turnaround. In 1993, Senate leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, backed legislation to end automatic “birthright” citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.

Sen. Harry Reid (Sept. 20, 1993): If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and then give birth to a child here, we reward that child with U.S. citizenshipNo sane country would do that.

In 2009, Reid’s successor, Democrat Chuck Schumer:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (June 25, 2009): Illegal immigration is wrong plain and simple.

But today, Schumer leads the Democrats’ resistance to border security and the SAVE Act, requiring proof of citizenship and voter ID.

Schumer (February 2): The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. If the Save Act were to become law, online registration, registration by mail, and registration drives would become a thing of the past.

Some high-profile Democrats are calling out what they see as madness.

Rahm Emanuel, former Obama Chief of Staff (March 31, The Fifth Column): We as Democrats nationally, from ‘Latinx,’ to defunding the police, to ‘Police organizations are all racist,’ to bringing a set of cultural wars to our schools. We are on the losing side of those cultural wars. Full stop.

Sen. John Fetterman (Oct. 22, 2025, Fox News): When Vice President Harris referred to President Trump as a ‘fascist’ and I knew absolutely we lost the plot at that point.

Senator Angus King is an Independent from Maine who usually votes with Democrats.

Sharyl: What are some of the conversations you’re having with your Democrat and maybe even some of your Republican colleagues in the Senate as these things are developing and decisions are being made about what to do?

Sen. Angus King: What I’ve seen is you can now lose your primary, not because of your position on immigration or, or abortion or whatever it is, you can lose your primary if you’re deemed not sufficiently hostile to the other side. In other words, you’re a dead duck if you’re viewed as somebody who’s willing to listen to the other side and try to find a compromise solution. That’s dangerous, if you think about it, because people come here, none of these major problems can be solved without compromise. Nobody has all the right ideas. But if you come here afraid to talk, think about what does that do to the Congress? Paralysis can’t solve problems.

Prominent Democrats including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema have left the party, citing its sharp leftward shift. Kennedy and Gabbard endorsed Trump and joined his administration.

Democrat Seth Magaziner.

Magaziner: I think they’re seeking new faces for sure. And by the way, I mean Trump, even though he’s someone who I disagree with on almost everything, you know, there are certain issues where, you know, he moderated himself compared to the prior establishment Republicans. Right?

Sharyl: Well, he is not far right on a lot of stuff. In fact, he’s more like a Democrat on some issues.

Magaziner: Well, right. I mean, like he, look, he’s, you know, too far right for me on, on a lot of things and particularly on rule of law issues, which, which concern me deeply. But he doesn’t talk about cutting Social Security the way, you know, even Mit Romney or Paul Ryan did. Right. And so similarly on the Democratic side, I think you will see new leaders emerge and they already are emerging. And again, it’s not about moving to the left, to the center, it’s about new faces, it’s about new voices, and it’s about having the courage to break from the orthodoxy.

Sen. Ron Wyden: I think independents in both parts of the spectrum are growing. I also think the sleeper area to watch is those who are moving towards the libertarian space.

Ron Wyden is a lead Democrat in the Senate.

Sharyl: Do you have any thoughts just about where the party’s headed and where the party’s going today?

Wyden: I do. The best politics are good policy. I think the American people, and I hear at my town hall meetings, I’ve had more than 1100, open to all town hall meetings that people wanna see elected officials stand up. I do a few things that are different. For example, at those town hall meetings, I just finished five in areas where Donald Trump got more than 70% of the vote. So they’re very red, bright red. And I talked to ’em or really listened to them talk about healthcare because they’re seeing that their rural hospitals are gonna get flattened. So my counsel to everybody who’s thinking about the politics of 2026, the best thing you can do for your politics is do your job and get out and listen. Listen, listen, listen.

Looking to the next presidential election, the Democrats’ early contenders underscore the party’s internal tug-of-war. California Governor Gavin Newsom leads some early polls.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (February 22, CNN): The Democratic party needs to be, dare I say, more culturally normal, I believe that. Less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity politics. More focused on tabletop issues.

Other names in the mix include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Obama official Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris (April 10): I’m thinking about it, I’m thinking about it.

After years of sharp left turns and policies at odds with many of their own voters, Democrats find themselves in search of a post-Trump identity and strategy. The midterms will test how well they’re coming up with that.

King: I feel very awkward ’cause I don’t feel like it’s my job to advise the Democrats or anybody else for that matter. But I think a kind of return to the working class roots of the Democratic party, common sense issues that are of concern, whether it’s inflation or you know, the concerns about immigration. Remember they said Kamala Harris will be the border czar, but there was never any czaring going on? And I think that was a case where the Democrats were preoccupied with other issues and not really realizing how powerful that was and how concerning it was to people all over the country.

Sharyl (on-camera): If you want to hear more on this story, check out my podcast Full Measure After Hours.

Watch the video here.

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