‘It’s not rocket science’: Senate Democrats detail lessons from their victories

Senate Democrats who pulled off victories even as President-elect Donald Trump won their states believe the Democratic Party can learn some lessons from their races as it grapples with losing control of Washington.

"It's not rocket science, but talking about those issues plainly, not from the faculty lounge, but from the assembly line, is, I think, a very important message," Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told reporters at a briefing at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Tuesday, stressing the importance of focusing on "kitchen table issues."

Slotkin is one of four Democratic Senate candidates who won their battleground states even as Vice President Kamala Harris lost them, thanks to a combination of ticket-splitters and voters who only cast their ballots in the presidential race. For these Democrats, focusing on economic issues and their records in Congress were crucial to their wins, as well as expanding their voter outreach to Republican-leaning areas.

"I personally think that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo," Slotkin said. "People need to be looked at as independent Americans, whatever group they're from, whatever party they may be from."

Along with Slotkin, Arizona Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin won their races even as Trump carried their states. The split results have been rare in the polarized Trump era, with only one other senator (Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine) winning in a state that backed the opposite party's presidential nominee in 2016 and 2020.

Rosen and Baldwin also spoke about criticizing their respective opponents for having deep connections to other states, effectively labeling them carpetbaggers.

Democrats still lost the Senate majority despite those victories, with Republicans flipping seats in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. The GOP could also pick up a seat in Pennsylvania. NBC News has not yet projected a winner in the race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick, which has gone to a recount, with McCormick leading by about a quarter of a percentage point.

Democrats acknowledged Harris faced some headwinds in running a protracted campaign after taking over the ticket in late July.

"All of us talked about showing up everywhere, listening, delivering," Baldwin said. "And I would say that it's hard to do that in 107 days. But Trump was a known quantity and he's been doing that for years."

Gallego said he believed the Harris campaign ran "a great race," but also said the short timeline was an issue.

"The problem was that people did not have enough time to know about her," Gallego said, later adding, "I think this was going to be a tough race for whoever was the nominee, because it was — it ended up being a race on the economy," noting inflation in Arizona was "stubbornly high."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not directly answer a question about whether President Joe Biden should have ended his campaign earlier and whether there should have been a primary.

"I'm not going to say anything bad about Joe Biden," Schumer said, calling him "an outstanding president." Schumer said Harris told him shortly after Biden's announcement that she wanted and was willing to compete in an open process for the nomination.

"There was a groundswell right afterwards, and she became the nominee quickly for a whole bunch of reasons," Schumer said.

And while his party lost the White House, the House and the Senate, Schumer touted the Senate victories as more evidence that the party should be focused on the economy.

"The lesson we take is: Economic issues matter. Direct things that affect people's lives matter," Schumer said. "And one other lesson: How to show a lot of empathy. Sometimes Democrats may be a little too solution-oriented, and people want to, first before you get to the solutions, hear empathy. That I understand that the price of beef is way up, and it really hurts your pocketbook, and it affects you, and affects my family, it affects others. And then go into solutions."

"And I think these four candidates all did that."