“Most people think I’ve got the shittiest job in America, but I feel like I’ve got the best job in America.”

— DNC chair Ken Martin, quoted by Politico.

“The Democrat Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”

— White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, on Fox News.

Time: “While Democrats in races across the country are bracing for Mamdani to come up in opponents’ attack ads and fundraising ploys, it’s unclear how much of it will resonate outside of the Big Apple. Conversations with players in both parties reveal that Republicans’ drive to lash Mamdani’s brand of politics to Democratic contenders thus far has been a mixed bag.”

“Some Republicans quietly concede that Mamdani is tough to cast as the architect of Democrats’ national strategy. The sharp 33-year-old state legislator may be in the center of the media universe, but no one looks at New York Mayors as the deciding force inside the Democratic Party…”

“Another rub: even New Yorkers don’t know who Mamdani is, let alone most voters beyond the boroughs. In a Quinnipiac poll released last week, 19% of likely New York City voters said they hadn’t heard enough about him to even have an opinion of him. Nationally, he’s even less known.”

“I think the obvious answer, which has been stated 5 million times, is that they’re way out of touch with where ordinary people are… I was really surprised—and I didn’t really appreciate this until I ran for president—at how weak the party is in much of the country. I mean, they really had to go crazy to beat me.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), quoted by The Nation, on the problem with the Democratic party.

“This is exactly the moment for people to stand up. And do I see enough people doing it? No, I don’t. It shouldn’t be that there are Democrats that are afraid, because you know what? We’re the targets. We need to be strong, we need to fight back.”

— Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), quoted by the New York Times.

The Democratic Party’s favorability ratings have just about hit their lowest point of the year. Overall, 59% view the party unfavorably, equal to the party’s nadir in late July, according to Decision Desk HQ.

Only 36% hold a favorable opinion, resulting in a -23 net favorability rating.

“Top Democratic Party officials are increasingly frustrated with their leadership for not doing more to support Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for mayor of New York City,” Axios reports.

“The rise of Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has split top Democrats in D.C. and New York, some of whom fear his left-wing views and criticism of Israel will damage the party’s national brand.”

Jonathan Last: “So far as I can tell, the Democratic ask on the shutdown negotiations boils down to:

• “Preserving ACA subsidies for low-income people that will keep health care premiums lower.”
• “Undoing Republican cuts to Medicaid in order to preserve healthcare access, especially in poor, rural areas.”

“This is political malpractice.”

“Democrats have Trump over a barrel. The government is shut down. Real-world impacts from the last piece of Republican legislation will start crushing voters, soon. And the Democrats’ proposal is to… save Trump from the political costs of the shutdown by saving him from the political costs of his Big Beautiful Bill?”

“Don’t do these things that will make you unpopular, Mr. President, and then we’ll give you the votes you need to end the shutdown, which is also making you unpopular.”

Playbook: “When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) dropped their three-minute video on Wednesday explaining the stakes of the shutdown, it instantly set ablaze Democratic group chats and X accounts, inspiring no small amount of wishcasting that these two figures could be the voice of the Democratic Party at this moment.”

“But on a deeper level, it revealed that the party — as represented by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — is pinioned by two competing pressures on the shutdown: the demand to fight, and the pressure to be responsible governing partners. The former comes from the party’s base; the latter, from its establishment.”

“The challenge for leadership is this: At this moment, they are fighting. But it’s still not landing with the Democratic base, much of which believes Schumer is prosecuting the case all wrong.”

President Trump called Democrats the party of “Hate, Evil, and Satan” amid the ongoing shutdown of the federal government.

“A quiet retreat by Democrats from the pre-eminent pro-Israel lobbying group is the latest evidence of a realignment underway in Congress on Israel,” the New York Times reports.

From the Washington Post editorial board:

“The Democratic Party shut off any potential escape valve to avoid a shutdown, which began at midnight on Tuesday. In doing so, progressives embraced the same disastrous mentality that led the House Freedom Caucus to believe it could come out ahead in previous government funding standoffs: They wrongly assumed their political leverage would withstand the ensuing fallout.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the ‘but he fights’ wing of the GOP ultimately won control of the party, culminating in the Trump era that we are living in now. Democrats, meanwhile, are in a position similar to Republicans a dozen years ago—trying to navigate a situation where at least some segment of their base wants to be able to say ‘but they fight!’ even as their likelihood of winning that fight is debatable at best.”

“As we said above, we doubt this shutdown matters in the context of the 2026 midterm, but the kind of leader Democrats want in the longer-term will be hashed out during the 2028 presidential primary. Republicans made their choice in 2016, opting for a candidate who fit the ‘but he fights’ mold.”

“Whatever kind of candidate Democrats nominate in 2028, perhaps there will have been something instructive about that choice that we remember from this shutdown.”