Democrats won by running against the Democratic Party

One month before the Democratic Party’s midterm triumph, the Pew Research Center asked Americans their views of the two parties. Sixty-one percent viewed the Republicans unfavorably, and 58 percent had the same negative view of Democrats. This dissatisfaction with the two main political parties has been growing in recent decades, and the number of independents has been climbing — reaching 45 percent of U.S. adults in 2025, according to Gallup. So how, amid this growing alienation, did the Democrats pull off a landslide?

The short answer is by becoming an anti-party party. Across the Western world, voters have become increasingly unhappy with mainstream political parties, which have lost supporters, members and vote shares. In Britain’s 1951 election, the Tories and the Labour Party got 97 percent of the vote; in 2024, their combined share was 57 percent. This reflects part of a broader dissatisfaction with established institutions, from government to the church to big business.

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