What a Bigger-Tent Democratic Party Could Look Like

CONNECTICUT SEN. CHRIS MURPHY’S CAREER in the upper chamber of Congress has largely been defined by a horrible act that occurred before he even got there. The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School occurred on December 14, 2012, weeks before Murphy was sworn in as a senator. It took place within the House district he had represented for the prior four years. And news of it reached him just as he was about to catch a train to New York City for a holiday trip with his kids.

Five minutes before he boarded, word of the tragedy began trickling in. He talked to his kids, got in his car, turned around, and drove north to Newtown. His life and career have never been the same.

Gun control became Murphy’s cause. It haunted him, not just when he had to speak to the grieving parents who had lost their children in that senseless act of murder, but also when he later spoke to constituents in Connecticut’s inner cities, who wondered why he suddenly seemed to care about the issue now that predominantly white families had been affected by it.

When the post–Sandy Hook efforts to pass stronger background checks failed, it gutted him. He’s spoken at length about his emotional connection to the issue, wrote a book about guns, and said that he will judge his career based on the progress he makes on limiting gun violence.

But in the wake of the 2024 election, Murphy has made adjustments, grown more reflective, and begun reconsidering what it means to be dogmatic about guns.

Speaking at an anti-monopoly conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday afternoon, Murphy told the audience that “the fastest-growing share of the electorate are socially and culturally conservative voters who are economically populist.” As he saw it, that would require his party, the Democrats, not only to embrace populist economic positions (he was, after all, speaking to a room full of anti-monopoly nerds) but to make room for candidates who won’t always echo the D.C. Democratic consensus on issues. That was particularly true, he added, on social and cultural topics. And if he was going to demand certain ideological compromises from others, he would have to offer one of his own.

“I spent a long time trying to apply a litmus test to my party on this issue that I care so deeply about. I’m rethinking the wisdom of that,” Murphy said, having just referred to gun policy specifically. “I think the future of our republic and the future of our party now depends on us building a big-tent party with economic populism and the unrigging of democracy as the two tent poles—and really being purposefully more permissive about who we let in on a host of other issues that matter to me and a lot of other Democrats.”

Share

“Permissive” isn’t a word you would use to describe Democrats over the past few years. The party has suffered from a perception that it has become intolerant of different perspectives and preoccupied with identity politics and language policing. Litmus tests aren’t just applied to gun policy, but to policies on LGBT rights, immigration enforcement, policing, and other matters.

But losing power has a way of shaking up party canon. And there are some signs that Democrats are ready to move past this era of ideological purity and rigidity.

Aside from Murphy, leaders like Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego have stressed the importance of centering the Democratic party’s message on cost of living while also not shaming voters who listen to Joe Rogan or who want to own a “big-ass truck.” Earlier this year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime advocate for LGBT rights, signaled an openness to restricting trans women’s participation in sports. And Maryland Gov. Wes Moore vetoed a bill to study potential slavery reparations—a far cry from 2020, when a number of Democrats opened the door to a larger national conversation about them.

“People finally realize that for the Democratic party to be a durable majority party, it has to change,” said Democratic strategists Lis Smith, who was a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. “Candidates don’t need to check every progressive litmus test to deserve party support.”

While a number of top officials have signaled their desire for a more inclusive Democratic party, the real effort is already taking place quietly, and at slightly lower levels. Over the past few months, top operatives in the ranks have been launching political and policy initiatives designed to soften some of the party’s sharper cultural edges.