Opinion | 20 Years Ago, Democrats Found a Way Out of the Wilderness. They Can Again.

President Trump is misreading his mandate.He ran on lowering the cost of living, but the price of eggs is going up and he is plotting to increase health care premiums.

He disavowed Project 2025, but seems to be implementing it page by page.Twenty years ago, another Republican president in a similar position — elected with a margin of victory similar to Mr.Trump’s, and starting his term with a similar (though slightly better) approval rating — misread his mandate, too.In early 2005, Democrats were lost and reeling from defeat.

But Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi didn’t just sit back — they assembled a battle plan and carried it out with great discipline.Democrats soon found their footing, took back both houses of Congress in the midterms and set themselves up for a dominant victory in the next presidential election.

George W.Bush slunk out of office as one of the least popular presidents in modern history.In 2025, we can comeback if we follow their model, which means prioritizing smart, winnable fights — and always with an eye toward winning back power.Mr.

Reid and Ms.Pelosi’s strategy rallied the party around a clearly defined set of Democratic priorities, especially protecting entitlements like Social Security from cuts and privatization.

This created a clear contrast with Republicans over issues where the average voter was aligned with the Democrats and channeled grass-roots energy into fights with Republicans over issues that enjoyed broad support among the public.Raising the profile of popular fights while lowering it for unpopular ones carried over to the 2008 primary, which focused on favorable issues for Democrats including health care, ending tax giveaways to corporations and cleaning up corruption in Washington — and helped deliver the most dominant general-election performance by either party in this century.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience wh...