Democrats are in a good position going into the 2026 midterm elections, as long as they remain consistent in their focus on affordability and what the party can do for working- and middle-class families, according to two top campaign managers who spoke at a Dartmouth Political Union event on April 9.
Both Maya Handa, who oversaw Zohran Mamdani’s winning campaign for New York City mayor in 2025, and Jen O’Malley Dillon, who managed Joe Biden’s 2020 bid for the presidency and chaired Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, emphasized that Democratic candidates across the country must speak truthfully and directly to the electorate, and take advantage of social media to convey their messages, if they are going to win.
“It’s about what we are going to say in 2026, but also about how we say it and how we campaign,” Handa said. “What we saw in ’25 actually speaks to a little bit of both of those kind of pillars. I do think a focus on affordability was really, really important. And I think one thing that we saw was candidates being able to really focus in on tangible political platforms, tangible messages that were about what we were going to do for you.”
“What we’re seeing in the early parts of 2026 really puts Democrats in a good position, as long as we don’t screw it up,” Dillon told the audience of 100 in Filene Auditorium, with dozens of others watching by livestream.
That said, she added, the multiplicity of social media and news sources has made connecting with voters a challenge.
“It’s never been more complex to find a way to reach people. We are such a polarized country when it comes to our politics and, and, you know, people are tuning out in a lot of ways and for good reason—because we need to survive,” Dillon said.
Although billed as a debate between the progressive and centrist wings of the Democratic Party, Handa and Dillon were largely in agreement on the issues raised by DPU moderator Margaret de la Fuente ’27.
The economy and affordability are still front and center with voters, they said. Not far behind are the disillusionment of the electorate; whether the Democratic Party had lost working- and middle-class voters through its use of what Dillon termed “elite speak;” the role of superPACs and dark-money groups in influencing election results; and the role of social media in appealing to a broader swath of younger voters.
Add to those issues the wars in Gaza and Iran, and the political landscape is in turmoil.
To communicate with voters, Handa said, candidates in the 2026 and 2028 general elections will again need to “speak directly and honestly to the electorate with tangible political platforms, tangible messages that are simply about what we’re going to do for you.”
Although Mamdani began his candidacy as a largely unknown, self-described progressive socialist and Muslim, he had “a tangible message, a hopeful message, and a really clear and concise message” that helped him win against a national backdrop of anger and despair, Handa said.
It helped that Mamdani was an exceptionally gifted campaigner who, in his social media posts and public appearances, was shrewd, good-natured and charismatic, but also, Handa said, sincere in his proposals for how to address unaffordability in one of the country’s most expensive cities.
For Democrats to win seats across the country, in both local and national elections, Handa said, “I think we should be recruiting candidates who are generationally talented communicators. But if we can’t, then I think we have to get more creative about it.”
Given a digital and social media tsunami, with people inundated by and reluctant to engage with political discourse, how candidates distinguish themselves from their opponents will be key, Dillon said.
“It’s going to be really important that candidates adapt to that and change the way that they campaign and change the way that they prepare,” Dillon said.
In order to win Democratic seats, the more candidates that run, the better, Handa and Dillon agreed.
“The primary process is like a gauntlet, and it is a crucible. Presidential primaries, because of the amount of investment and attention into them, really do help shape the direction our party goes in,” Handa said.
In response to a question from de la Fuente about the possibility of a woman president in the near future, Handa and DIllon were not sanguine about a female Democratic candidate prevailing in the 2028 general election.
“I do think it is going to be very difficult for a woman to win in 2028,” Dillon said.
The fact that the Democratic Party nominated two highly qualified female candidates, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, who then lost to Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024 can be attributed, in part, to the fact they were female, Dillon said.
“Anyone that tells you differently is not paying attention,” Dillon said.
But she also pointed to the Democratic governors of New Jersey and Virginia—Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger—as women who won in 2025. “So I hope anyone who’s even thinking about it, I hope they put their names out there,” Dillon said.
Although she did not address herself specifically to Clinton and Harris’s losses, Handa echoed Dillon’s comments on fighting the good fight.
“Every single person that walks through the door is leaving the door open for someone else. The only way you do impossible things is by continuing to try to do impossible things. It is the only way that a woman will become president. She certainly will not become president if everyone stops believing in it,” Handa said.
Both campaign veterans declined to speculate, after prompting from de la Fuente, who the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 might be.
“We actually don’t know the answer to this question. Anyone who is giving you an answer is probably incorrect,” Dillon said.
After the discussion, Peter Drew ’29 said he was glad he attended because the debate pertained directly to the work he is doing for a progressive political campaign in New Hampshire.
“I spend a lot of time kind of wondering about if we don’t win, are we going to still be able to make a difference?” said Drew, who is from Syracuse, N.Y., and a likely social sciences major.
The answer to that, he said, is yes.
Progressivism is “kind of shifting the future of the Democratic Party a bit towards what we believe, and the more that people agree with us, the more of that change we’ll be able to make,” Drew said.
