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News Analysis
Leaders in the party appear to have a subtle but fundamental disagreement: Should they oppose President Trump at every turn, or try to find some common ground?
By Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer
Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer have, between the two of them, covered every Democratic presidential nominee since 2008.
March 18, 2025Updated 3:23 p.m. ET
Over a short stretch on Tuesday morning, top Democrats showed why their reeling party still cannot agree on the best way to seize back power in Washington.
From his perch on his new podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California made the case for not only hearing out some of the most hard-line figures on the American right, but also welcoming them onto his show — a choice that prompted pushback from his latest guest, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
Hours later, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois took a different approach in a speech at the Center for American Progress, an influential liberal think tank.
The Trump administration, he implied, had plunged the country into a “villainous cruelty” that must be fiercely opposed by a unified Democratic front.
“We have to take any opportunity where we have leverage in order to stand up and fight,” he said.
For an unpopular Democratic Party that is struggling to find a way forward, the most significant dividing line — for now — is not one of ideology.
Instead, as Democrats try to craft a new vision, they are clashing over a simpler question: How hard should they resist?
