That doesn’t mean Democrats can’t recover. The party has won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, and evidently has a dedicated base of popular support. Democrats will more credibly be able to run on a platform promising change after being shut out of government. And if Trump is unpopular with voters by the time the 2018 elections take place, they may also be able to capitalize on public resentment of the administration to win races. “The general mood may grow more favorable for Democrats as we get further into a Trump administration,” Bannon added. “I don’t think it’s time for Democrats to wring their hands and despair.”

A central challenge facing Democrats is whether they can hold together the diverse coalition of voters that propelled Obama to the presidency while making inroads with the white working-class voters who turned out in support of Trump. The answer may depend on how, and how much, Democrats oppose the incoming administration, and if the party can deliver a compelling and cohesive message about what it stands for. That task will be complicated by the fact that Democrats running races in states Trump won will feel pressure to find common ground with Republicans.

As Democrats engage in soul-searching and prepare for the battles ahead, the party will also need to consider whether the political map is in the process of being re-drawn. The electoral map is always in flux to some extent. But it remains to be seen whether Republican gains in the industrial midwest and the rust belt can be reversed during the course of Trump’s presidency, or whether they are a sign of increasing GOP dominance in those parts of the country in the years to come.

It’s possible that some states may be slipping away from Democrats. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania along with Iowa and Minnesota are all states that have “watched their Democratic leans evaporate over the last thirty years,” Brandon Finnigan, the director of the non-partisan election site Decision Desk HQ, wrote in an e-mail. “This doesn’t mean a Democrat won’t win these states ever again, or that Republicans have a lock on them. But they’ve red-shifted,” he said, adding that despite the state’s track record of voting for Democrats in presidential elections, “it’s just a matter of time” before even Minnesota breaks for the Republican candidate in a presidential race.

It won’t necessarily be easy for Democrats to win back voters that once supported Obama and then voted for Trump. In some parts of the country, “voters stampeded to Trump. They didn’t just move to Trump. They ran to Trump,” Finnigan said in an interview, adding: “It would take a massive event for them to come stampeding back in a cycle.” That dynamic could frustrate Democrats hoping to swiftly reverse the losses the party sustained in the presidential election.