The Democratic Party is still figuring out how to meet this moment.

And we spoke to three Democrats, all launching first-time bids for national office in 2026 about what they think their party needs to do to win.

I'm Mallory McMorrow. I'm from Royal Oak, Michigan, and I'm running for United States Senate.

My name is Jake Rakeau. I am a live in Studio City, and I'm running for the 32nd Congressional District in California.

I'm Katabugzale.

I'm from Chicago, and I'm running for Congress in the 9th District of Illinois.

It is not enough to say Democrats are not in power right now, but just vote for us hard enough in the midterms.

People want to see that you feel

what they're feeling, that you feel the fear and anxiety and frustration and anger. Every single

authoritarian movement thrives when the opposition party refuses to actually stand up to them.

Anyone that's taken in middle school history class knows that

appeasement isn't effective. My opponent, Brad Sherman, has been in office for almost 30 years.

He's in this 15th term. He was elected in 1996 when I was eight years old. I think people who

have been in power for that long and have so checked out of the district as he has is why we got

Trump twice. And so I'm running against him to bring a new generation to Congress to actually show those

people who left our party that we are still a party of progress and still a party that's

going to work for them.

A lot of Congress didn't grow up with school shooting drills.

They don't worry about out-of-pocket expenses.

They probably own their homes.

And that's not the case for most of Gen Z.

The idea that you can't afford to buy a house, that you don't have job security, that you may

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