WASHINGTON — If history is really written by the victors, the story of what happened in the 2014 midterm elections will be about the failure of Democratic policies and a repudiation of the liberalism that President Obama champions.

But the losers have a version, too. And when Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, offers his take on Tuesday, it may strike many as counterintuitive. The argument he will outline in a speech at the National Press Club is, in essence, an espousal of the big-government philosophy scorned by so many conservatives. Mr. Schumer will say it is the only thing that will save the Democratic Party in 2016.

“Democrats must embrace government. It’s what we believe in; it’s what unites our party; and, most importantly, it’s the only thing that’s going to get the middle class going again,” Mr. Schumer will say, according to his prepared remarks.

Republicans have successfully portrayed government as the source of the country’s ills, he argues, and Democrats need to aggressively counter that sentiment before it sets in too deeply.