'We are not defeated': 5 takeaways on what's ahead for Democrats in 2025 as Trump returns

Democrats remain in a funk more than a month after gut-punch losses to President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies, a leaderless party heading toward Inauguration Day and soon without control of the White House and both chambers on Capitol Hill.

"We have no idea what's going to happen next," Donna Brazile, a longtime Democratic political strategist and former interim party chairwoman, told USA TODAY. "None of this has been in our playbook."

At the moment, Democrats don't have an agreed-upon, top-down strategy. For now, they're resound mostly to attaboys from the likes of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala, who encouraged the party faithful to keep their chin up at a recent Democratic National Committee event for donors.

"My dad would say, when you get knocked down, you've just got to get up, get up," said Biden, who bowed out of the 2024 contest this summer, largely at the behest of big givers. "The measure of a person or a party is how fast they get up."

"Our spirit is not defeated," added Harris, who inherited her party's presidential nomination from Biden and then went on to lose all seven swing states this fall.

Here is some of what lies ahead for the opposition party in 2025.