The unraveling of Trump's 2024 coalition

Welcome back, "Emerging Democratic Majority?"

The Blue Wave return-eth. Photo by © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s populist appeal broke the Democratic Party last year. It cost them their base and their message, and it shattered their confidence, as the nonwhite voters Democrats had claimed to champion for years comprehensively turned on them.

Worse, this seemed like just the start of a major political realignment that was set to continue, with the Republicans set to usher in a young, multiracial, new-age coalition. All of these narratives pointed to a Democratic Party in decline.

The Party’s ongoing decline in Trump’s second term would be a great story, and there are a lot of facially reasonable arguments you can make for it. The only problem is this: I don’t think it’s true. If anything, it’s now completely backwards.

Let’s back up. Every data point we’ve seen in 2025 consistently points to one reality: A blue wave is coming. In fact, there’s good reason to believe that 2026 may be the best year for Democrats since 2018. But no two waves are the same, and I’m coming to expect that the 2026 wave is going to be very different from its predecessor.

The 2018 blue wave was powered by massive gains with high-propensity, highly educated white suburbanites. But in our polls at The Argument (and as you can see in the charts below) I’ve noticed that this time, Democratic gains are actually coming with lower-propensity and nonwhite voters, which is a complete reversal of the political trends we’ve seen over the last several years.