All told, Democrats already seem as though they’re headed for a great midterm election. Voters already troubled by the state of the economy now have the impacts of Donald Trump’s teeter-tottering war in Iran to contend with, and polls tell us they aren’t happy ⁠– per poll averages from the analyst Nate Silver, nearly 55% of Americans oppose the war in Iran, 61% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, and 57% of Americans disapprove of Trump overall. As it stands, Democrats have a six-point advantage in generic congressional ballot polling over Republicans.

And Republican hopes that a mid-decade redistricting rush would save their tight majority in the House have been frustrated. The partisan gerrymandering war of the last several months peaked with the victory of a ballot measure in Virginia that allows the state’s Democratic legislature to draw maps that would eliminate three Republican seats and a riposte by Florida Republicans who approved their own map that could allow Republicans to gain as many as four seats in that state – mere hours after the Supreme Court struck down provisions in the Voting Rights Act banning racial gerrymandering.

While the redistricting battles will drag on, electoral history and Trump’s standing give Democrats plenty of reason to presume it will take the House in November ⁠– on average in elections since the end of World War II, the president’s party tends to lose well over 20 House seats in midterm elections and Republicans currently hold the chamber by just three. And given polling for competitive races in Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and elsewhere, even the Senate may now be in Democrats’ reach.

Across the country, Democrats now hold a small advantage on the basis of House maps alone that could be eliminated if Florida Republicans rework that state’s map and if the US supreme court strikes down provisions in the Voting Rights Act banning racial gerrymandering in the coming weeks. But even if so, electoral history and Trump’s standing give the party plenty of reason to presume it will take the chamber in November ⁠– on average in elections since the end of second world war, the president’s party tends to lose well over 20 House seats in midterm elections and Republicans currently hold the chamber by just three.

And given polling for competitive races in Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and elsewhere, even the Senate may now be in Democrats’ reach.

But as optimistic as Democrats might be about the election just ahead, the party’s future beyond November is perhaps murkier than ever ⁠– even as its likeliest contenders for the presidency in 2028 soft-launch their candidacies.

Kamala Harris’s lead in the early polls, and the fact that she’s now saying openly that she might run again, are strong indicants that the party’s in a state of limbo. But there are other signs: the still buried and unseen autopsy of the 2024 election, hidden by chair Ken Martin on the grounds that its conclusions might further divide the party, for instance, or the proliferation of groups offering donors and electeds alike their own shopworn analyses of what went wrong in the last cycle instead.

“Deciding to Win”, the moderate WelcomePac announced in an October report of that name, “does not embrace the timid and risk-averse culture that pervades much of the institutional Democratic party”. The bold, risk-taking strategies they’ve suggested, courageously, included an economic agenda focused on “growing the economy” and “creating jobs”, support for policies such as lowering drug costs and raising taxes on the wealthy, and otherwise working to “moderate our positions” on issues like immigration and “some identity and cultural issues”.

In sum, the Democratic party is to be saved by the very strategies it has reliably pursued in elections, including in 2024, for the last 40 years ⁠– notwithstanding the fact that it has nonetheless seen its support among the working-class, non-college voters it needs to win steadily erode over that time.

As often as these prescriptions are offered, there’s plenty of evidence Democrats aren’t hurting because they’re insufficiently moderate and relatable. Recent polling from the analyst G Elliott Morris’s Strength in Numbers, for instance, shows that Democrats already hold double digit leads over Republicans on the questions of which party “cares about people most like you” (D+14) and “looks out for the middle class” (D+11).

Voters additionally believe Republicans are more extreme in their positions by a 10-point margin. But voters also think Republicans are more “willing to fight” for what they believe in (R+4), have stronger leaders (R+11), are more likely to get things done (R+7), and have a clearer political message (R+8).

“[T]he Democratic brand is not predominantly woke, but weak,” Morris writes. “Respondents to our survey associated the Democrats with traits like honesty and caring about the working class, but they are seen as weak and not particularly effective. The Republican brand, by contrast, is a strong brand that a majority of the country finds extreme.”

If it’s true that most voters view Democrats as substantively sympathetic but scared and ineffectual, that impression won’t be fixed by electeds trying to reverse themselves or shrink away from clear and strong argumentation when Republicans press issues like immigration and trans rights. And additionally, the kind of conspiracy-mongering on Jeffrey Epstein some Democrats have taken to as a means of tapping into voters’ justifiable cynicism and disgust about our elites seems like a poor substitute for a “get things done” agenda to truly change politics and the country for the better.

A staggering 77% of Americans believe the country’s political system is in need of either major changes or complete reform according to a recent Pew survey, and 59% of voters, per NBC, believe the country’s political and economic systems are fundamentally stacked against them, a tie for the record high across 40 years of surveys.

And that malaise is plainly being compounded by mounting angst over the disruptions the tech industry and artificial intelligence have wrought within our working and personal lives. According to NBC, a 57% majority of Americans believe the risks of AI outweigh its potential benefits and only 26% of voters report having positive feelings about the technology as a whole. “In fact, the only topics with a lower net positive rating than AI,” NBC’s Allan Smith notes tellingly, “were the Democratic party and Iran.”

If Democrats do take the House, or Congress, in November despite their unpopularity, they’ll have won absent three things a serious party in their position ought to have. The party needs a clear, concrete and compelling near-term agenda the American people can trust Democrats to actually accomplish should they take power again in 2029.

It also needs a strategy for structurally shoring itself up in Washington, against an increasingly extreme and structurally advantaged Republican party, beyond the game of millimeters it’s tried to win on the redistricting front.

On that point, the most significant recent news from Virginia wasn’t the victory of the Democrats’ gerrymandering scheme, but Abigail Spanberger’s signing of a bill making Virginia the 18th state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between states that could functionally end the electoral college if a total of 270 votes are committed to the pact.

As it stands there are 222. Finally and most abstractly, but no less importantly, Democrats need to present the American people with a vision for the country that isn’t defined negatively against the character and politics of Trump, who, execrable as he is, will not be around as a galvanizing villain forever. He might carry them to victory this November, yes. But he can’t carry them much longer.

• Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist