In the wake of Donald Trump’s shocking electoral victory last week, the Democratic Party has been plunged suddenly and unexpectedly into an existential crisis. “How are we losing these elections?” Senator Bernie Sanders wondered aloud on The Late Show, where he appeared Monday to hawk his new book, Our Revolution. “Something is fundamentally wrong” with Democrats, he suggested. “The party has got to transform itself to be a party that opens the door, that feels the pain of working-class people, of the middle class, of low-income, of young people.”

The question of how to re-engage those voters, many of whom stayed home last Tuesday night rather than vote for Hillary Clinton, is now roiling the Democratic Party. For Sanders and his supporters, Trump’s rise suggests the Vermont senator was right all along to focus his campaign on populist issues that appealed to working-class voters across racial lines, whereas some critics have argued that Clinton’s focus on social liberalism, ironically, came at the expense of a more inclusive economic message. Of course, there’s no rule that says Democrats cannot address the concerns of white, working-class voters and remain committed to social justice and civil rights, too. Barack Obama achieved both in 2008. Clinton’s failure to retain the formerly Democratic strongholds of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had more to do with her decision to ignore those Rust Belt states than the specifics of her message.

But regardless of whether the choice between economic populism and social liberalism represents a false dichotomy, the debate over the correct orientation of the Democratic Party is already shaking up the comparatively staid liberal establishment in Washington. And progressive Democrats, contemplating the hard road back to the White House and control of Congress, are seeking to replace key leadership roles as they steel themselves for life under President Trump. Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison has quickly emerged as a front-runner to lead the Democratic National Committee, whose former chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a staunch Clinton ally, stepped down earlier this year. Ellison, the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, would shift the party’s power center further left, toward Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both of whom have endorsed him. Ellison would represent a synthesis of the competing impulses within the party in the post-Trump era: the 53-year-old congressman is both an economic populist from the Midwest and a black Muslim who has taken the lead on civil-rights issues. Party leadership is on board, too: retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid recently endorsed Ellison, saying that the party needed “new thinking and a fresh start.” Senator Chuck Schumer, Reid’s successor, supported his bid for more pragmatic reasons: “Schumer’s view is the D.N.C. is where grassroots organizing in sync with [legislative] battles should be organized,” a source told Politico.

So far, Ellison faces little competition for the role. Howard Dean, a more establishment Democratic figure who was the party’s chairman from 2005 to 2009, was quick to water down his interest in the job after party elders got behind Ellison. “I think I know how to do this,” the former presidential candidate said Monday on Morning Joe. “[But] I’ve already done this once. This is not something I have to do. This is not something I’m going to push people out of the way for.” Other possible rivals include Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who has declared her candidacy, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez is said to be considering a run.