Meanwhile, the Left is finding a new appetite for its no-compromise style of politics as polling shows the Democratic Party underwater with its own voters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in particular, has fueled resentment toward the Democratic establishment after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) caved to Republicans in a fight over government funding.

Both progressive icons were surrogates for Biden, an unpopular incumbent who embraced liberal policies in exchange for their support. Their loyalty then shifted to Vice President Kamala Harris as she mounted an ill-fated campaign to replace him on the Democratic ticket.

But the outcome of the 2024 election, in which Democrats lost both the White House and Senate, is allowing them to trade their pragmatism for the grassroots agitating that first catapulted them to national prominence. The Democrats lack a figurehead until the next presidential race, leaving a void for Sanders and his progressive colleagues to fill.

“If you’re looking for that one charismatic leader to identify as the leader of the movement, it’s going to be a couple of years before that, because that’s structural,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), a progressive member of Democrats’ Senate leadership team. “That’s what happens when you lose the House, the Senate, and the presidency.”

“The good news is that we have more fired-up people with more ideological and geographic diversity than any time I’ve ever seen in politics,” he added. “The bad news is we’re out of power.”

There is nothing especially new about Sanders’s message as he hops from state to state, bringing with him Ocasio-Cortez and other lawmakers. Elon Musk, the de facto head of Trump’s agency-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, has become the new boogeyman for Sanders’s decadeslong warnings about an entrenched class of billionaires.

But even Sanders has expressed surprise at crowd sizes that seem to eclipse the audiences he drew in 2016 and 2020, when he challenged Biden and before that Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president.

His political team estimates that 108,000 people have attended his “Fight Oligarchy” tour, with 34,000 in Denver alone. Ocasio-Cortez will join Sanders again for an April 12 event in Los Angeles, according to a Friday advisory.

“I mean, people want to be plugged into action, and he’s providing people with that outlet,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), an ally of Sanders, told the Washington Examiner. “This is not a moment when we’re asking people to do something and they won’t do it. They’re hungry.”

Murphy subsequently announced that he would be traveling to Warren, Michigan, on Saturday for a joint town hall with Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a Gen Z House Democrat.

“I think it’s stunning the numbers he’s getting,” Murphy added of Sanders. “I hope he does more of it, and I hope the rest of us get on the road too.”

The appetite for action is a double-edged sword for Democrats. It comes at the expense of party leadership, panned by the Left as weak in the face of Trump’s sweeping rollback of the federal government. In speeches, Ocasio-Cortez has called for the party to support “brawlers” who will fight harder to oppose Trump and criticized Schumer directly after his government funding vote.

It has also given Republicans a fresh chance to tie Democrats to the most extreme elements of their party following a backlash to the “defund the police” and other left-wing movements. Multiple polls have found the Democratic Party with the lowest favorability rating on record, driven by a desire for Democrats to stand in the way of Trump.

“The Democrat Party’s approval rating has hit a record low of 27 percent because they’ve become antagonists of common sense,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) said on X. “Now, they’re empowering Bernie and AOC while egging on the disruptive tactics of radical far-left groups. I doubt this helps their cause.”

Still, the prospect of an animated Democratic base is tantalizing for the party as it seeks to claw back the House in next year’s midterm elections. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are giving voice to Democratic dissatisfaction with leadership while reserving most of their ire for Trump as he shutters agencies and slashes thousands of federal jobs.

“He’s handed the keys to Elon Musk and is selling this country for parts to the richest people on the planet for a kickback,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Nevada last week.

The leadership vacuum has set off a wave of early jockeying for a presidential election that is still years away. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), long a progressive champion, has tacked to the right with a more centrist tone on transgender rights. He’s also flirted with the MAGA Right, inviting prominent voices like Charlie Kirk onto his new podcast.

Newsom is one in a deep bench of Democratic governors stoking 2028 speculation, while Ocasio-Cortez herself is thought to have ambitions for higher office. She was most recently encouraged to run for Schumer’s Senate seat when he comes up for reelection in 2028.

In the short term, progressive lawmakers are rushing to fill the gulf left by Biden. Murphy, who has urged Senate leadership to take a harder line on Trump, fundraised off his refusal to be “steamrolled” in the government funding fight earlier this month and on Friday sent an email to supporters soliciting donations for his rally in Michigan.

He will be traveling to the state’s 10th Congressional District, one of dozens of battlegrounds that will determine control of the House in 2026.

“This is how we win. This is how we fight back against the corruption, the destruction of our democracy and Trump and Musk’s illegal power grab,” Murphy said in his fundraising email. “We go everywhere. We take this debate to every corner of the nation — especially where Republicans are hiding from the people. We put pressure on them in their own backyard.”

Ocasio-Cortez, speaking in Tucson, Arizona, last week, urged rallygoers to mobilize for races up and down the ballot, calling community organizing the key to Democratic success.

“I’m here to remind you that we are not powerless in this moment,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Notably, her call to action includes rejecting ideological purity tests and instead realigning the Democratic coalition around “class solidarity.” Her message is part of a larger recalibration by Democrats as they seek to reclaim the working-class voters who have gravitated to Republicans under Trump.

“I think that we have to grow the party. And we are not in the winnowing-down phase. We are in the rebuilding phase,” Schatz said. “If people have views that I find weird or objectionable, but they want to vote for Democrats, they are welcome. If there are some pro-life gubernatorial candidates in a red state, God bless. I’ll send them a check.”

“My view is that politics is addition, not subtraction, and we have to say that to ourselves every morning, even when it’s painful,” he added.

The thrust of their big tent strategy centers on rekindling the opposition to Trump that defined his arrival in the White House in 2017. Democrats have attempted to portray Republicans as cutting critical social services to pay for tax breaks for the rich.

But Trump’s return to power has also laid bare a schism between the Left and the more pragmatic party leadership. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the top Democrat in the House, virtually unified his caucus against the government funding bill earlier this month, yet Schumer’s refusal to do so in the Senate, arguing that a shutdown was a political loser for Democrats, has spawned an upswell in anti-establishment sentiment not seen since the Tea Party era.

Already, a younger generation of Democrats is challenging established House members, even those with long progressive records. One of the latest, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old influencer, will attempt to unseat Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who has represented Illinois in the House since 1999.

At 83, Sanders is unlikely to mount another run for president but has used his rallies to elevate younger voices including Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Other liberal voices, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), have courted controversy in a bid to build notoriety.

For Ocasio-Cortez, the grassroots anger offers her a chance to stand at odds with party leadership amid growing complaints that she is going “mainstream” on the Left.

She has taken a series of baby steps toward joining House leadership since her shock defeat of Rep. Joe Crowley, seen as a possible successor to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in 2018.

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Ocasio-Cortez privately suggested to colleagues last year that she might no longer meddle in primary races, after years of supporting progressive challengers, and has begun contributing to House Democrats’ campaign arm despite previously swearing off the practice.

Last year, she endorsed Harris despite offering a protest endorsement of Sanders at Biden’s nominating convention four years earlier.