Across the country, in front yards and on main streets, at dairy breakfasts and inside breweries, voters are delivering a similar message to Democratic primary candidates: they’re tired of both parties, and sick of being ignored.The Democratic party brand is bruised after its disastrous 2024 presidential loss. A botched review of the defeat by the Democratic National Committee, and a drawn-out process over releasing the so-called autopsy, created another round of handwringing over the party’s direction.On doorsteps, though, the voters don’t bring up the autopsy, or the party’s brand, according to candidates nationwide. They want a party that will stand up to Trump, fight for their healthcare and housing, make life more affordable, rein in immigration agents, build up their schools, get the US out of war and lower gas prices, protect their jobs from AI, confront the climate crisis and prevent datacenters from coming in.And many remain skeptical the Democrats can do all – or even part – of that.“It’s less about the bickering amongst Democrats and more about folks feeling like there are fewer people who give a shit in politics,” said Francesca Hong, a Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin.The Guardian spoke to candidates, lawmakers and operatives about where the party now stands, 19 months after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris – and five months before the next set of crucial US elections.The midterm headwinds show Democrats in a strong place to win back the US House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, in November. But the contours of that wave are yet to be determined, and Democratic primary candidates are far from united on how the party should align itself and move forward.Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (reflected) during the first presidential debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 10 September 2024. Photograph: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesSome are charting a moderate path, while others have embraced leftwing populism. While few candidates are fixated on perceptions about the Democratic party’s brand, these perceptions nonetheless affect their races, and whether voters believe they can deliver.Ken Martin, the chair of the DNC, acknowledged after releasing the autopsy that the Democratic brand “is in trouble”, noting that ballot measures based on Democratic policies often win in places where candidates do not. “We have to restore confidence in our party and show we can really deliver on our campaign promises to the American people,” he wrote.Beyond the midterms, the Democrats believe they need to compete everywhere, rebuilding in areas they’d previously written off in rural, red-leaning parts of the country. The goal is not always to win, but to lose by less.Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator and Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, recently held a roundtable in a swing county with Trump voters to try to understand why they voted for him, and what they think of him now. One man said he voted for Trump because he promised to blow up the system, bring jobs back to the US and end wars, McMorrow said.Trump has fallen short of many such promises. But the man McMorrow met didn’t believe anybody in Washington understands how much people like him are struggling.Mallory McMorrow, a candidate for US Senate, in Detroit, Michigan, on 19 April. Photograph: Jose Juarez/APDemocrats can’t assume that voters angry at Trump will simply turn out and vote for them instead, McMorrow said. “I just don’t want Democrats to take for granted that Republicans are giving us every opportunity, but we got to be aggressive, we got to fight, and we got to fight for people and make some people uncomfortable.”Primaries serve as a way for the party to publicly hash out its next steps.Chris Rabb, a state lawmaker from Philadelphia who won his primary in the bluest district in the US and faces no general election challenger, said he believes establishment politics is on the ballot right now, too. Voters need to feel like the party is committed to the “people closest to the pain”, rather than the donor class, he said.“Most incumbents are never seriously challenged, so that’s how you build that entrenchment, that complacency, sometimes hubris,” Rabb said. “If you never have to worry about losing, who’s holding you to account?”Out of touch?Martin won his bid to become DNC chair in February 2025, after promising to conduct – and release – a review of the presidential election loss. But the months wore on, and no report was published. Martin described the report as not “ready for primetime” and controversially decided not to release it. A host of other groups, from centrists to progressives, wrote their own versions of what went wrong in 2024.Martin didn’t want to “create a distraction”, he wrote in a blog post when the report was finally published last month. “Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction.”The report is lacking in detail and data, and what it did not include stands out more than what it did. Joe Biden’s age – perhaps the central deficit of his re-election campaign, which he dropped in July 2024, making way for Harris – is not addressed. There is no mention, either, of the war in Gaza, a key schism on the left during the election.Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, in Newark, New Jersey, on 1 November 2025. Photograph: Kylie Cooper/ReutersThe effect was a sense that the party has yet to seriously grapple with its deficiencies, making it hard for some voters to see the Democrats as their long-term political home.Abbas Alawieh, a leader in the uncommitted movement, which advocated for Democrats to support a ceasefire in Gaza, is now running for state senate in Michigan and said war remains a central electoral issue for voters of all backgrounds, who want Democrats to be the anti-war party.“The fact that the autopsy report did not grapple with that issue, I think it’s just a further indication that the party’s out of touch with where voters are,” said Alawieh.Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official running for US senate in Michigan, said voters may not bring up the autopsy, but they have a “broader frustration” with the party and a lack of leadership – and how this affects issues from healthcare costs to US spending on bombs abroad.“These are the issues that keep people up at night, and they feel like the party is just completely absent from the playing field, trying to fight the last battle, and even then, fought it poorly,” El-Sayed said. “So, I think people want a Democratic party that is willing to show up and fight on the issues that are the most important in their lives, and they’re just not seeing that.”Abdul El-Sayed at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, on 7 April. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/APThe battles over the autopsy, which largely played out in the media or on leftwing podcasts or among the donor class, have not affected the day-to-day lives of voters the party hopes to reach. “They don’t even know what ‘DNC’ stands for,” Rabb said.But Julius Hernandez, a Democratic consultant in Colorado, also said the “petty little fights” over an election nearly two years ago are a distraction. “Voters are looking at us like: ‘Hey, how are you going to stop Donald Trump?’” he said.Searching for sanityDemocrats in red and rural states have been arguing for many years that the party must invest more time and money in their areas so they can communicate with voters who used to be part of their coalition. Instead, it has largely concentrated on seven to 10 battleground states, and messages from the party nationally have tended to represent coastal areas, said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic party.Curtis Hertel Jr, chair of the Michigan Democratic party, said two county parties in his state that were defunct for more than a decade are now back online. He visited 32 counties last year, and his party has held town halls in red areas.Hertel walked in the parade at the Mesick mushroom festival, in a deep red part of the state. “They told me I was going to get yelled at and spit on,” he said. “People were actually excited that a Democrat was actually showing up to have a conversation.”Recalling a line from the movie The American President – “If you don’t give people water, they’ll drink sand” – Hertel said Trump “is bullshit and blame”, and wins elections through division. In other words, he’s got people drinking sand.Donald Trump at an event about coal in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on 4 June. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP“We’ve got to give people water,” said Hertel. “If we’re not the party fighting for higher wages or lowering the cost of healthcare, if we’re not the party of making childcare more affordable or making it easier for a family to own a home, there won’t be a party in America that’s fighting for those things.”How Democrats set about pouring that water depends on their priorities, and their districts. In Arizona, where statewide candidates who win tend to be more moderate Democrats, campaigns are tailored toward winning over independents and moderate Republicans, said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic consultant in the south-western state.It’s not fair to look at the Democratic brand in isolation, because the Republican party “has gone absolutely batshit”, she said. Democrats have struggled to define what they are for – instead just saying they are “against that tinfoil hat brigade” – but they are getting better, she said.“Folks are frustrated with this system, and the parties are the system,” Pearson said. “What we find is that, particularly Democrats in Arizona, who are a minority, just want sanity. They are against the extremes on both sides, and they just want government to function. They want to call when the streetlight’s out and have someone pick up the phone.”Avoiding heartbreakIn a swing district in western Wisconsin, Rebecca Cooke is running again to unseat Republican representative Derrick Van Orden. If she says she’s a Democrat, a lot of times voters dismiss her outright. But if she starts with her background and her values, they’re more open to talk.“They want people in Congress that really give a shit about their livelihood, their farm, their public school, their hospital, and that’s whether they’re a Democrat or a Republican,” Cooke said.They’re sick of “limousine liberals and caviar conservatives”, she said. They want a clear roadmap of what will happen if Democrats win back the House and, eventually, control in Washington.“There is no perfectly worded statement or agenda that’s going to come in and turn things around,” Cooke said. “It’s up to all of us to come together to develop the policies that are going to impact our communities.”Chris Rabb, the Pennsylvania state representative, in Philadelphia on 15 May. Photograph: Matthew Hatcher/Getty ImagesHong, the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate, often asks voters first what they care about. When she asked one man recently what he was most proud of in his community, he immediately asked whether she was a Democrat or a Republican. She’s a Democratic socialist running as a Democrat, she told him, and he disagreed on the idea of taxing billionaires. “We ended the conversation at potholes,” she said.Rabb, in the deep-blue Philadelphia district, said voters were mad at Trump, but also at entrenched Democratic politics. And a lot of people had a direct question, he said: how do we know you’re not going to be the next John Fetterman, referring to the Pennsylvania senator who ran on leftwing messages, only to grow more conservative in office.“They felt betrayed by someone who was cosplaying as a populist,” Rabb said. “They want to know, how do we know you’re not going to break our heart?”Does a party brand even matter?Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager of the 2024 campaigns for Biden, and then Harris, wrote his own autopsy in the Bulwark, saying Democrats are likely to win the House and maybe even the Senate this year, but those wins would “paper over” a structural problem. “Our party still speaks the language of, and to the priorities of, people who care about our institutions and believe they basically work,” he said.Democrats that used to be part of the coalition – the multiracial working class – want a party that’s “on their side against a system that isn’t working for them”, according to Flaherty.The debate surrounding the Democratic party’s brand and direction does matter, candidates stressed. People want to be part of a winning team, said Kleeb, of Nebraska. Volunteers who spend countless hours knocking on doors wants to give their time to a party that fights and wins, said McMorrow, of Michigan.“They want a banner to fight under,” El-Sayed, of Michigan, said.The national dysfunction doesn’t mean people on the ground are stagnant, said Hong, of Wisconsin. There’s a lot of local energy around organizing and protesting, especially now that there’s broader opposition to Trump. She thinks Democrats can expand their base, bring back working-class people who feel betrayed by the president, and show them they belong with the Democrats.“It’s amazing how many people will say: ‘Dems have to start saying not just who we’re fighting against, but what we’re fighting for,’” said Hong. “And then there’s an awkward pause, and I wait for someone to say something.“And I wish we could say we’re fighting for the worker, we’re fighting for freedoms, we’re fighting to keep our rights and protect our neighbors, and I think we have to take that message to people.”