Democrats are again 'in between leaders' as Biden prepares to leave office

WASHINGTON — Democrats find themselves in a familiar position: unable to point to a clear party leader as a sitting president prepares to hand over the reins to Donald Trump.

They faced a similar quandary in January 2017, when Barack Obama was in his final days in office. Back then, some Democrats pointed to their powerful House leader and former speaker, Nancy Pelosi, as the rightful official at the head of their table.

But some eight years later, it is far from clear who will become the party’s new chief around noon on Jan. 20, when Trump is slated to be sworn in and Joe Biden relinquishes his hold on the presidency.

“It’s not the first time this has ever happened, but let’s just say that we as a party are currently in between leaders right now,” said Jim Manley, a former senior Democratic Senate aide.

“I have said it before and I will say it again, but we as a party have done a very poor job of grooming the next generation of leaders in recent years,” Manley said in an email. “One thing is clear to me, for better or worse, our next leader of our party isn’t coming from the top ranks of Democrats in either the House or Senate. All will have a role to play, but the leadership has to come from elsewhere.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a state where Trump earlier this month held Kamala Harris to a surprisingly close race, agreed that the party needs to look outside Washington for its next torch-holder.

“It’s going to be a time for a lot of generational change,” the 69-year-old Warner said Thursday. “You’ve got a lot of new leaders in the House. We’ve got some great governors — as a former governor, I’m always a fan of governors.”

But the third-term senator said his party has a “brand problem, where a lot of folks don’t even hear our policies” — something, he added, that has helped Republicans make gains in Virginia.

“There are parts of my state that I used to win with 60 percent and now … I get 45 percent. So, I’m not sure that’s going to be changed by a single face,” Warner said. He pointed to Trump’s successes with Latino and Black male voters this year, adding, “If they’ve been able to break through, we’ve got to break through, as well.”

Meanwhile, several House Democrats were quick to state the obvious. “The leader in the House is definitely Hakeem Jeffries,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin said of the 54-year-old New Yorker chosen to lead the Democratic Caucus in its second consecutive Congress in the minority.

But asked Thursday about the next leader of the entire Democratic Party, Raskin took several long pauses.

“The way I think of it is we’ve got a lot of leaders in the Democratic Party. We don’t need to have, like, one autocratic, dictatorial leader,” he said. “The House of Representatives is the ‘People’s House,’ and Hakeem Jeffries speaks very powerfully for our caucus.”

“I’m looking to him very much to help … lead us through the wilderness here,” Raskin said of the minority leader.

But Jeffries is still a relative newcomer to leadership, and his campaign trail efforts this year on behalf of Democratic candidates could not ward off a continued Republican majority in the new Congress.

Democratic lawmakers and strategists, notably, declined to point to any individual as the party’s post-Biden leader.

“We have people that are really good and smart and who will … all be leaders,” said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern. “So, I’m not looking to one person. We all have to step up and be leaders.”

Familiar turf

One longtime Democratic leader who reportedly was involved in the intraparty pressure campaign that helped convince Biden to end his reelection bid still holds ample influence. Pelosi might have left her leadership suite in the Capitol, but she hasn’t gone far — her speaker emerita title is far more than a symbolic nod to the first female speaker.

“Pelosi is somebody we turn to all of the time for her astute political judgment and wisdom,” Raskin said when asked about the California Democrat stepping in as the party’s leader.

Her name was floated eight years ago when Democrats were asked the same question. But as she recently reminded a New York Times interviewer, Pelosi largely focuses her fundraising and candidate-recruiting efforts on regaining or holding the House majority.

Back in November 2016, with his party also staring down full Republican control of Washington, Obama was asked what advice he would give Democrats following Trump’s first stunning win.

“When your team loses, everybody gets deflated. And it’s hard, and it’s challenging,” he told reporters in the White House briefing room. “And I think it’s a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection. I think it’s important for me not to be big-footing that conversation.”

Obama has been quiet since Trump’s decisive second victory, but the president who won in 2008 with 365 electoral votes and with 332 four years later didn’t hold back at that news conference eight years ago.

“I also believe that good ideas don’t matter if people don’t hear them. And one of the issues the Democrats have to be clear on is the given population distribution across the country,” he said. “We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere.”

Eric Schultz, an aide to Obama who also served as a White House deputy press secretary under the 44th president, said “one difference between now and 2016 is that Democrats have a strong and diverse bench of talent of leaders that weren’t generally in sight eight years ago, including sitting governors, members of Congress, and members of the Cabinet.

“We now have a roster of energetic, smart, effective Democrats who have proven they can win — even in tough political climates,” he said in an email. “Now is the time for the next generation of Democratic leaders to step up, offer their theory of the case, and help rebuild the party’s standing.”

Schultz, like the other Democrats CQ Roll Call spoke to, did not name a potential leader who met that criteria.

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