The Democratic Party is still trying to figure out its message after 2024's defeat

As Democrats debate the future of their party and ways to fight low approval ratings, some politicians have begun to change both the form and format of their messaging to reach more voters.

They include former transportation secretary and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who told NPR in a lengthy podcast interview this week that Democrats have not adapted to the way politics has changed.

"I think that Democrats have been slow to understand the changes in how people get their information, slow to understand some of the cultural changes that have been happening, and maybe most problematic of all, to attach to a status quo that has been failing us for a long time," Buttigieg said.

"Right now, you've got an administration that is burning down so many of the most important institutions that we have in this country, which is wrong. It is also wrong to imagine that we should have just kept everything going along the way it was. And I think that my party needs to do a better job of addressing the fundamental problems that have led people to mistrust everything."

Other prominent voices within the party are making that case — and taking that argument outside of the party's typical messaging channels.

Potential Democratic presidential hopefuls like California's Rep. Ro Khanna and Gov. Gavin Newsom are doing lengthy appearances on popular podcasts where they have more space to share with people who don't typically engage with politics using more casual language instead of more focus-group tested language the party is sometimes criticized for.

"I don't understand how we let Trump become the 'made in America' guy," Khanna said on Theo Von's "This Past Weekend" podcast last month. "We need to be the party that says, 'Here's our vision for making things in America.' And wouldn't it be great if the argument in this country was who was going to build America better?"

There's also a growing consensus from Democratic officeholders that the party's reaction to the Trump administration's efforts to cut government programs, fire workers and radically reshape the federal government should not be reflexively undoing it.

In his interview with NPR, Buttigieg said the president was wrong to cut the Department of Education and USAID funding, for example.

"But it's also wrong to suppose that if Democrats come back to power, our project should be to just tape the pieces together just the way that they were," he said. "We should be unsentimental about the things that don't work. We should be fearless in defending the things that do work. And yes, we should be naming the forces, entities, people, often corporations, who stand between a lot of Americans in a better, freer life."

Democrats' unpopularity comes from within

Polling shows voters have historically negative views about Democrats in Congress and the overall brand of the party. But a sizable share of the dissatisfaction comes from people who consider themselves Democrats, favor Democratic policies and ultimately will end up voting for the Democratic candidate.

That intra-party strife is manifesting itself in a number of ways, including a slew of notable primary challengers to longtime incumbent Democratic lawmakers, record rally attendance for the populist message of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the energy directed toward the No Kings protest movement and packed Congressional town halls.

In Washington, D.C., and in the states, you are also seeing Democrats seek to create daylight between the unpopular parts of the Biden presidency and the national party brand to offer voters something else.

For example, at the North Carolina Democratic Party's annual Unity Dinner fundraiser last week, party officials touted their focus on raising awareness of judicial elections, an upcoming veto session in the state legislature and hammered home their views on how healthcare and the economy are changing for the worse because of Trump.

Even with one of the most high-profile U.S. Senate races in the country, which will likely see former North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper as the nominee facing off against Michael Whatley, the most recent chair of the Republican National Committee, Democrats are seeking to keep the local focus in a nationalized contest.

"When you made me your governor, we balanced the state budget every year and worked with Republicans to raise teacher pay, recruit thousands of better paying jobs, and expand Medicaid to more than 650,000 working North Carolinians," Cooper said in his campaign launch video. "But right now, our country is facing a moment as fragile as any I can remember."

North Carolina Senate minority leader Sydney Batch said after the event that Democrats need to be better at explaining their policies to people.

"The Republicans are much better at branding and messaging than we are," she said. "We will sit here and give you 150 words where we probably should have only used five."

Her five word message for what the party needs to consider: "Candidates that fit their district," which highlights another part of the Democrats' debate over their future.

"You can't cannibalize people that are more moderate within the Democratic Party simply because they aren't exactly what your progressive district may look like," Batch added. "And so if we're going to be a big tent, we have to be more inclusive. And as a divorce attorney, what I would say is, if you're in a relationship and 75% of the time you agree with your spouse, it's a high water mark day, and you know what? You're actually doing well."

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