ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Lee Drutman fears Democrats will mistake a backlash for a mandate—rather than using a moment of victory to break the two-party doom loop.
Don't confuse a historically-high outcome with a history-changing event. That's my lesson from the latest episode of This Old Democracy with returning guest and CBF co-founder Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America's politics program.
Drutman says Democrats have plenty to celebrate from an election in which the winning side will have a national vote edge of at least 13% over the losing party, a margin not seen since 1974. But letting the celebration blind them to some hard realities would be a critical and predictable mistake, says Drutman. He warns: Don't confuse rejection of the party in power with durable support for its replacement.
What does Drutman say happened on Tuesday, November 3?
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First, he joins other analysts in saying the outcome was explained much more by a repudiation of a president with historically-low job approval ratings (we have to go back to the final days of Richard Nixon to find anything worse). So Democrats cannot claim, based on the electorate's choices, that their policies are much more popular.
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Second, we know from the work of Drutman and others that American elections have a pendulum quality, especially midterm elections. The "cost of ruling" almost always penalizes the party in power.
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Third, Drutman reminds us of the growing number of "double haters." He cites WSJ and CNN estimates of this group as between 21% and 25% of the electorate.
Take these elements together – Trump's low standing, the cost of ruling, and the rise in double haters, and a persuasive explanation for the Democrats' performance comes into plain view:
"[M]ostly they're voting against whichever party is in power. And in '24, Democrats were in power …so the double haters were voting against the incumbent to the extent that they were voting... Now, Republicans are in control of the White House, doing a particularly bad job … so it's a lot of double haters voting against Republicans… {T]his is not love of the Democratic Party as much as it is 'just gotta do something to push back against Trump.'"
Drutman has been around long enough to recite the pattern: the hopes for a durable Democratic era after Obama's 2008 victory, followed by the Tea Party backlash; claims of a Republican working-class realignment after 2024—followed by another reversal. The recurring pattern: victory, inflated expectations, disappointment, backlash. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with both parties grows.
Drutman is just about ready to guarantee that Democrats will pay their own "cost of ruling" if they manage to win the White House and hold power up until the 2030 midterm elections. Yes, they should try to govern better. But Drutman observes, "A lot of the long term economic challenges in this country are not going to correct in two years." The inherent whiplash dynamic of our system is not going to change, and thinking otherwise is short-sighted.
Instead, Drutman beats the drum for changing the rules that have locked in these predictable (and predictably bad) outcomes. Public problems are not solved, and anger and disillusionment are ever-present. Only rules changes – simple and proven ones, really – provide a way to change the destructive incentives of the status quo.
"[P]ractically that means changing the voting system to get out of this zero-sum binary two-party system, making it more viable for third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties, even maybe sixth parties to come and go, to bring new ideas, to make the coalitions a little bit more fluid, to make it so that every election isn't just throw all the bums out and bring in a different set of bums, but, you know, maybe readjust the coalition."
The structural rules reforms Drutman prioritizes are familiar to readers of this Substack:
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Electoral fusion for single-winner elections. Two (or more) parties nominate the same candidate, but for different reasons, which allows distinct constituencies to "send a message" with their vote. It makes factions visible, and teaches citizens and electeds alike that principled bargaining and coalition politics are a good and common feature in a democracy.
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Proportional representation for legislative bodies. Seats in a legislature are distributed based on each party's support among the voting public. Most advanced democracies use one version or another of PR. And for good reason: PR systems produce better governance, fairer representation, less hatred, more coalitions.
Both reforms give those double-hating dissatisfied voters ways to participate in a governing coalition. It's not winner-takes-all, it's winner-gets-its-fair-share and so does everyone else.
It's not that changing the rules would be good for Democrats; that's an open question. Rather, according to Drutman, changing the rules is good (perhaps essential) for the survival of American democracy. We need more and better parties. Drutman gets specific about the paramount need of the moment:
"Without a center-right party that believes in the fundamentals of liberal democracy, it's hard to have a democracy. It can't be that in order to have a democracy, Democrats have to win every election, because that's not a democracy if only one party can win."
This follows from Drutman's "Two Party Doom Loop" thesis: When every election becomes an existential struggle for control, governing becomes less stable, long-term problem-solving harder, and the possibility of authoritarianism grows.
We are left to wonder after hearing Drutman's take, will Democrats treat victory as proof that the system works—or use their opportunity to change the system that keeps producing backlash?
Our own two cents: friends tell friends, don't get high on your own supply. Maybe the moment when winners feel least threatened may be their best opportunity to prevent the next destructive swing.
For more, read "The Democratic Party is about to make the most predictable mistake in politics," Undercurrent Events, March 23, 2026
