With a Republican trifecta looming on the horizon, some Democrats have he resorted to a blame game while others take their time after the 2024 election to reflect on what went wrong and how they can appeal to voters in the future.

Some, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), argued that the losses resulted from the Democratic Party’s “abandonment” of working-class people. Others, like Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), said Democrats are not in touch because they are “more concerned with offending people” rather than talking about important policy issues.

President-elect Donald Trump and his allies spent $123 million for a flurry of TV ads referencing transgender issues, including biological men playing in girls’ sports, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The campaign’s final message was that Vice President Kamala Harris was too radical with her past support for taxpayer-funded surgeries for transgender inmates, with the tagline “Kamala’s For They/Them. President Trump is for you.”

When asked how progressives should respond to the retaliation of the culture war, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE) said Democrats should take a moment to reflect.

“This is a time for soul-searching and there should be humility in the Democratic Party, regardless of where you fall ideologically, regardless of your priors, I think we should take a fight,” McBride said during a press conference who announced the newest members of the Progressive Caucus on Monday.

“Let’s be clear: the party that focused on the culture wars, the party that focused on trans people, was the Republican Party,” McBride added. “It was Donald Trump. It was the $100 million, $200 million they spent on TV ads.”

McBride, who made history as the first transgender member of Congress after Election Day, did not explicitly run for the identity, but said it was no secret.

“I think what we all have to recognize here is that when a politician tries to take an issue that affects a handful of people in a handful of states and make it the most important issue in an election, everybody must ask why?” McBride said. “And the answer to that question is that Donald Trump was trying to divide and distract from the fact that he has absolutely no political solutions to the problems that keep voters up at night, the problems that we heard about during the campaign. .”

McBride joined representatives-elect Nellie Pou (D-NJ), Laura Friedman (D-CA), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) and Lateefah Simon (D-CA) outside the US Capitol to be greeted as new members of the Progressive Caucus by Speaker Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Whip Greg Casar (D-TX).

Jayapal led the press conference, acknowledging that the outcome of the 2024 election was disappointing for many, with Trump poised for a second term, Republicans sweeping the Senate and the GOP on track to maintain a slim majority in the House.

But, Jayapal said, the losses will help the caucus “recalibrate” and “rebuild,” adding that the addition of new Democrats is proof that “progressive power, despite everything we’re dealing with, is still growing “.

With exit polls showing a dramatic drop in Democratic voter turnout compared to 2020, Jayapal said she’s “not interested in blame” but believes the Democratic Party needs to rebuild and address why people chose to vote against and neglect the presidential election.

“There’s a level of anger that I think this election has really brought to light,” the president said. “And as wonderful as it has been for many of us to think about joy and love and beautiful things that we in the Progressive Caucus really like to think about, the reality is that also , we have to channel much of the anger. it’s about people not having a fair chance anymore.”

Casar blamed the “right-wing propaganda machine” for the losses, arguing that the Democratic Party needs to show “very clearly” that it is the party of the working class people.

“We should not give up being the party of civil rights. We should stand up for every person’s rights, as Rep.-elect McBride just said, but that’s what people need to hear from us first,” Casar said during the conference call about where Democrats need to go from here.

Casar later told reporters that Democrats need to “break through the noise” and be willing to take risks.

“What the Republicans did was they tried to speak to people’s economic anxieties and then they blamed the vulnerable for it,” Casar said. “What Democrats need to do is speak to people’s economic anxieties and then blame the real villains for it.”

With several races still too close to call, control of the House remains up for grabs, but tilting toward Republicans. However, with rumors and confirmation that some GOP House lawmakers may pass to Trump’s cabinetand with some key changes by New York Democrats, the Republican House majority will likely be as small or smaller than it currently holds.

Most of the 118th Congress focused on GOP infighting, whether over government spending, foreign aid or removing speakers. Even some Republicans, famously Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), would begrudge their conservative colleagues that the level of unproductiveness in the House has left them with very little to campaign for in their districts.

Democrats helped unseat Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) several times this term, including various continuing resolutions and additional foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But, this could be the last support Republicans see for a while if there is an official GOP trifecta.

“We had this situation where we had Democrats in the minority in the House who felt it was up to us — we can debate whether or not that was the right thing to do or not — to fix Republicans’ inability to govern, instead of we leave to prove they couldn’t govern time after time,” Jayapal said, adding that Democrats did so because of a blue White House and Senate.

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“I don’t know that in this Congress, with a Republican trifecta, you’re going to see that same desire. … The voters voted for them. Let’s see what they do,” the Progressive Caucus chairman continued.

McBride told him Washington Examiner that being a new member of the House comes with “a great deal of humbling” and that it would be “premature” to lay out a strategy for finding bipartisanship and helping Republicans get legislation across the finish line.