Are Democrats facing permanent minority status in Congress?

The Senate is out of reach, and the House is dicey

A little more than 30 years ago a former colleague of mine, Jack Pitney, together with William Connelly wrote Congress’ Permanent Minority: Republicans in the U.S. House (1994). Setting aside the fact that the book was published shortly before the Gingrich-led Republican Revolution ended the GOP’s 40 wilderness years, it represented the best effort in political science to make sense of how a party copes with what seemed to be permanent minority status.

Republicans were trying to win every election cycle in those days, but as time went on it became clear that they didn’t have a realistic strategy to make that happen. No one liked being in the minority, but the intractability of the problem led Republicans to adapt as best they could.

The Democratic-Republican dynamic in Congress, 1954-1994
To understand that adaptive strategy it’s useful to consider the Democrats’ perspective. They enjoyed majority status, usually with a sizable numerical advantage, and they fully intended to maintain it. The key was not to force the numerous moderate and conservative Democratic members to take votes that might put their seats in jeopardy. So if legislation was liberal and controversial leadership gave those on the right flank of the party a free pass to vote “no.” That often left Democrats short of a majority in the chamber. But there was a solution: secure enough votes from Republicans (many of whom were moderate and a few liberal) to get the bill over the top.

What did Republicans get out of it? Juicy scraps from the table. The deal was, “Give us sufficient votes for passage and we will include some of your priorities in appropriations, transportation measures, water project bills, etc.” This arrangement was for all intents and purposes institutionalized by a practice of providing the minority a certain percentage, sometimes about 40%, of the projects in a given bill.

Since there seemed no prospect of being in charge, Republicans accepted the majority’s largesse in exchange for votes. The GOP members got the prestige of federal elective office and the likelihood of a long career thanks to bringing home the bacon. There’d be no committee chairmanships and no agenda setting — but all in all not a bad deal.

Today’s Democrats
Is something similar happening in Congress today, this time with Democrats the second class citizens? Consider the Senate.

There are more red states than blue by a margin of 24-19. And as partisan lines have hardened this century we have now reached the point where Democrats have exactly zero senators from these states. The last of them had a tough time surviving — a seemingly impossible one in West Virginia that Joe Manchin managed, and improbable success in Montana for Tester and Ohio for Brown. Alas, Manchin stepped side in 2024 and other two were defeated.

The red state Senate Democrat can now be reclassified from an endangered species to an extinct one.

Even if the party gets every single blue seat (they have all but the one seat in Maine stubbornly held onto by Susan Collins), they start at a severe disadvantage. The balance of power in the Senate rides on the seven purple states. Democrats do very well there, with 10 of the 14 seats, but even that is not enough, with Republicans now holding a 53-47 overall edge. Democrats’ prospects of turning that around are vanishingly slim. More likely is that Republicans gradually begin to even the score in the purple states, adding to their advantage.

As for the House, we’ll know a lot more after the 2026 midterms. At this point the body is on a knife’s edge with 220 likely GOP seats to 215 for the Democrats once all is said and done. But Democrats hold far more Trump district seats (14) than Republicans have Harris district seats (3).

While the situation in the House is not as clear cut as it is in the Senate, it too doesn’t look promising for Democrats. It’s worthwhile to be reminded that the states that stand to gain the most seats after the 2030 census are governed by Republicans who have access to those computer programs that facilitate gerrymandering. What states will losing seats? You guessed it, they’re mostly blue. Add it up: a net gain for Republicans beginning in 2032.

What we’re starting to see is a mirror image of the 1954-1994 period where the House was solidly in Democratic hands and the Senate was usually but not always also Democratic. Today it’s a solid Republican Senate with John Thune of South Dakota headed for a long run as Majority Leader and Chuck Schumer having to make himself comfortable in the minority leader’s office space. In the House, a majority is within reach for Democrats, but maybe not for long.

Are Democrats ok with this?
The dynamics of the contemporary Congress can be boiled down to this: a lot of sound and fury signifying little or nothing. The major legislation which keeps the government running, the economy humming, and the nation secure passes, usually easily and often with majorities of both parties in favor [see here and here for a dissection of this phenomenon]. The vitriol gets the press coverage; the boring facts of appropriations, national defense bills, and infrastructure bills are relegated to stories in the few publications that get into the details of the goings-on on Capitol Hill.

Democrats in Congress still seem to like their jobs (they’re not retiring in droves), despite being out of power. The perqs are good (awesome parking at Reagan National airport!), and the notoriety is probably gratifying. In terms of the meat and potatoes of the job, the situation is eerily similar to that of the Republicans in the era of Democratic dominance.

If anything, Democrats are more integral to the legislative process than Republicans were then. Speaker Mike Johnson seems unable to get even basic procedural rules through the House for many major bills. He resorts to something called “suspension of the rules,” which traditionally had been used for minor matters but now is used regularly for omnibus bills and other major legislation. This tactic boils down to short-circuiting the legislative process if you can get 2/3 of the chamber to support a measure. Which, if you do the math, means you need a lot of people in the minority in support. Support they won’t provide unless they get stuff they want in the bills. Many times Johnson and, before him, Kevin McCarthy have relied on more Democrats than Republicans for bills they helped negotiate.

The Senate operates with different rules (the de facto 60 vote requirement for most measures being the biggie), but at the end of the day it’s a distinction without a difference. In the upper chamber bipartisan support is needed just as is the case in the House. Of course Democrats would love to chair committees, set the agenda, and conduct vigorous oversight of the administration, but having a say in most major bills is not nothing.

Has the party reconciled itself to second class status? Well, no one would say that out loud, but at this point there doesn’t seem to be any real urgency for change. No upheaval in the leadership ranks, the normal bickering between progressive zealots and the establishment wing of the party continues apace, and certainly no acknowledgement of the party’s horrible prospects in the Senate.

What did it take to effect change? Newt figured it out
If you’re stuck in the minority it’s not easy or evident what to do to regain the majority. The path of least resistance is not to rock the boat, to conjure up rationalizations that a little incremental tinkering with the message will turn the tide in your favor — all the while continuing to enjoy those juicy scraps from the table that help keep you in office.

Newt Gingrich understood the scope of the challenge Republicans faced when he came to Congress in 1979. Almost from the start he teamed up with a few like-minded members to pursue an agenda of change — the “opportunity society” — that was helped along by the Reagan presidency a couple of years later. More importantly, Gingrich understood the problem from an electoral standpoint. Changing the status quo wasn’t just about innovative new ideas, the nitty gritty of it was finding plausible candidates across the country in House districts where Democrats were perceived to have a lock. And funding them. You certainly didn’t have a chance if you had no one or the equivalent of no one (a candidate with no money) running in dozens of districts.

To make a long story short, through the ‘80s and into the ‘90s Gingrich was grooming a new generation of Republican politicians. His organization produced cassettes that laid out what it took to run for Congress — and gave them to promising state legislators, traveling salespeople, pastors, small business owners, etc., who put them in the tape decks of their cars and listened and learned as they went about their business. The years of effort came to fruition in 1994 when an electoral earthquake shook loose dozens of Democratic strongholds and gave Republicans the majority in the House.

The moral of the story
It’s always hard to effect great change. Gingrich’s effort took years and tremendous resources. But the moral of this story is that what really makes upending the status quo so hard is that, in the case of Congress, minority status, while not the best thing, is still pretty darn good from a career perspective. You can continue to get what you need to get reelected in most cases without having to put in the hard work and introspection it takes to turn the political world on its head.

As with any problem, the crucial first step is to acknowledge you have it. For the most part Democrats aren’t there yet.