Daniela Altimari:
In 2024, Democrats campaigned on a message that democracy was at risk by highlighting the harrowing Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
The warning, however, didn’t land with voters who were focused more on the cost of living than high-minded appeals about the rule of law and the fate of democracy.
Now, five years after the attack, the campaign dynamics of Jan. 6 have shifted in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
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“We can’t ignore that it happened, and we can’t ignore why it happened,” said Brian Lemek, executive director of Defend the Vote, a political action committee that backs Democratic congressional candidates. “But we don’t need to relitigate all that all the time. We need to focus on what people care about today.”
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While concerns about democracy and fair elections continue to rank high among Democrats, those issues have found less traction with Republican voters.
An Economist/YouGov poll released in July found that 89 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independent voters viewed Jan. 6 as “a violent insurrection.’’ (Meanwhile, 51 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of independents saw it as “legitimate political discourse.”)
“Trump’s reelection made it really clear [that voters] were able to overlook that violent assault on our democracy to improve their day to day lives,’’ Lemek said.
But some Democrats say there’s room in their 2026 messaging for a corruption angle that includes invoking the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump “did whatever the hell he wants, and he’s going to try to do that for the next three years,’’ Lemek said. Democrats “need to put some blocks in place to prevent him from causing any more damage. "
