“You can't lose an election and say that there doesn't need to be change” — that’s how Democratic Rep. Jason Crow sums up the challenge facing his party.
He’s trying to help the Democratic Party make that change after losing the presidency, the Senate and failing to regain the House of Representatives last November.
Crow spoke with CPR News earlier this week about the path forward for his party as it looks toward the 2026 midterms.
“I understand the deep frustrations and the loss of the American dream, the economic struggles of a lot of folks. It is real and it is deep,” Crow said. He noted that his family struggled growing up, with parents unsure if they’d make ends meet. He worked at fast food places like McDonalds and in construction. And today, he said, much of his family supports President Donald Trump. “Unless we meet that frustration and breakthrough, are we going to continue to have a hard time with election cycles.”
For Crow, that breakthrough will require having empathy and regaining trust with voters who feel left behind, like those in rural communities in the West and Midwest.
“You can't start that with a policy discussion. We can't come up [with] 21-point white papers about our policies,” he explained. “Until we can go back to people and say, ‘we get this. I understand it. I've been through this myself. We respect your struggle and we're looking to re-earn your support.’ Until we can start that conversation, then we can have all the best policies in the world, but people aren't going to care about what we're trying to do.”
And he added that re-earning trust and support has to start from a place of respect. “You can't go back to somebody who has turned away from you and say, ‘See, I told you so.’ That will shut it down and that will ensure failure.”
How the party wins back voters nationally is a pressing concern for Crow; he’s been tapped by the House Democrats’ campaign arm to help recruit candidates for 2026. The former Army ranger joked, “I have a knack for being pulled into tough assignments."
The four-term Democrat didn’t seek out the job. Crow was asked, he thinks, because he was the type of recruit Democrats sought in 2018. Crow flipped a long-held Republican seat and was considered a front-line Democrat early in his tenure. He won reelection last fall by 20 points.
When it comes to prospective candidates, Crow said he’s not overly concerned with their ideology, because he doesn’t think that’s relevant in the current political climate. And he’s also not looking for the likely suspects.
“What I'm looking for is people who will tell the truth. People who are authentic. People that have lived experience in a community. People who have served their community,” he said. “So that when you're running in a district that may have voted for Donald Trump or voted for a Republican in the past, they're going to look at this candidate and say, ‘alright, I may not trust the party, but this person knows how to serve. This person is honest with me, whether I agree with them or not.’”
Crow spoke with CPR News before Senate Democrats enabled Republicans to pass their continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of September. The Senate’s Democratic leader decided to avoid a government shutdown despite members of their party deriding the bill and at a time that the Democratic base has been clamoring for their members of Congress to do more to challenge President Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk’s efforts to reshape the federal government.
“We’re going to meet this moment,” Crow said. House Democrats were largely united in opposing the funding measure, with only one of their members voting for it. But Crow believes meeting the moment and fighting back might best be done through the ballot box. “Coloradans are ready to go. I'm ready to go. My colleagues are. And the winds are shifting here, and they're shifting fast. And they're shifting in our favor.”
But he also acknowledged that rebuilding support in communities that have turned away from the party in recent elections is going to take some time.
