Congress DeVos defeat just the start for reeling Democrats But the party sees a comeback strategy in its opposition to Donald Trump's team.

Democrats say their path to winning again starts with this: a string of agonizing losses on the Senate floor.

After falling one vote short of bringing down beleaguered Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday, Democratic senators are gearing up for grueling losses on three more top nominees this week. The GOP is betting that voters already frustrated with Washington will punish the delay of President Donald Trump’s nominees, but even red-state Democrats are backing delay techniques designed to drive down Trump's popularity and weaken Cabinet members, if not defeat them.


It’s a brutal show of the minority’s limited power. Democrats are pulling all-nighters in a futile stand of opposition — powerless as their 2013 decision to gut the filibuster is used against them to approve nominees who surely would have been scuttled in years past. But the Democratic grass roots wants to see a high-profile fight, even one that ends in a loss, and senators are happy to oblige.

“It’s so clear the overwhelming majority of the public agrees with us on a number of nominees. The email, snail mail and phone calls are something like 200-to-1,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), adding that Republicans are "setting a precedent that the issue of ethics doesn’t matter."

Democrats are sensitive to criticism of their unsuccessful campaign against DeVos and the likely confirmation of three more Cabinet nominees before the weekend. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the party's vice presidential nominee last year, bristled when a reporter asked whether Democrats would be "giving up" on other nominees after their DeVos defeat.

“Why would you ask that? Is there any sign that we’re giving up?" Kaine shot back, maintaining a smile. "Give me evidence that we’re giving up." Challenged about whether Democrats have the stamina for more all-nighters against nominees whom they can't bring down, Kaine replied: "Check us out on the next one."

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday to expect "long debates" on attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Health secretary nominee Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Treasury secretary pick Steven Mnuchin, whose confirmation votes are scheduled after Sessions', are also expected to face Democratic procedural delays.

Other Democrats agreed that their intense opposition on confirmation votes that are typically lopsided affairs would prove successful by branding Trump's Cabinet as extreme in the eyes of the public.

"We're telling the American public that many of these nominees are out of the mainstream" by laying down "a marker when it comes to their policy orientation," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told POLITICO.

Later Tuesday, Democrats embraced a new Cabinet battle over Republicans' reprimand of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for reading a 1986 letter criticizing Sessions during a speech opposing his confirmation. Sessions is headed for eventual confirmation, but Democrats leapt to Warren's defense in order to spotlight the GOP's party-line vote to silence her for the rest of the debate on his nomination.

Republicans predict the gambit will backfire and say that Democrats have misread their electorate by drawing more attention to fights they can’t win.

“They’re going to create a national narrative that the people, I think, in North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida are going to reject. They want results,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in an interview, naming several of the 2018 Senate battlegrounds. “At some point, these sorts of theatrical performances are going to have a political consequence.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said questions about Democrats trying to extract a moral victory by nearly derailing nominees is "kind of like asking me if it was a moral victory for the Atlanta Falcons to win the first half" in the Super Bowl (they lost after a historic second-half meltdown). "I reckon I'm going to count the votes and see if we get to 51."

Democrats don't have much of a choice other than to oppose and delay many of the new president's nominees, given the anti-Trump fever among their base. Protesters have surrounded Schumer’s house in Brooklyn to chant “resist or resign.” Clearly there's little appetite among Democratic voters for moderation.

Democrats also privately say they are merely following the lead of Republicans, who have paid no discernible political price for shutting down the government, blocking a Supreme Court seat from being filled and fighting President Barack Obama's nominees tooth and nail.

Democrats believe that the more they can saddle Trump's nominees with ethical baggage and cast them as ultra-conservative — DeVos was parodied on Saturday Night Live last weekend — the more the GOP will have to own any Cabinet members who prove controversial. That could make Democrats' job easier in midterm election battles in red states. They're looking at a brutal 2018 map, defending seats in 10 states that Trump carried.

Democrats from states Trump won leaped into the fight against DeVos, despite TV attack ads from conservative groups that tarred her critics as "full of rage and hate."

Drawing out that confirmation battle until the very last minute was "well worth our time" to see whether a Republican vote could be changed, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said in a brief interview. "The same for the rest of them. They're all really controversial this week," said Tester, who is up in 2018.

Even after the quartet of contentious Cabinet nominees this week, Democrats are laying the groundwork to drag out votes on Environmental Protection Agency nominee Scott Pruitt and Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump's pick for White House budget director.

Liberal groups are egging on Democrats. Some activists unrealistically raised expectations among the party's base about derailing DeVos. One organizer told protesters at a Monday night rally outside the Capitol that he was "very confident" Democrats could prevail.

But Democrats see little downside to the quixotic Cabinet fights. They're hoping to capture enthusiasm from outside the Beltway and channel it into a political strategy — in a replay of 2009 and 2010, when the GOP largely co-opted the tea party movement to sap Obama's momentum.

To that end, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out a list-building email to capitalize on the party's all-night charge against DeVos.

“They’ve awakened a sleeping giant. Some of these people were already activated, but many are coming into the political process for the first time,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the DSCC, said in an interview. “If Trump continues down the path that he’s going, that will create more opportunities in more states.”

Another top GOP target for 2018, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), endorsed his party's call to fight Cabinet nominees that don't need Democratic votes to prevail.

"Even if you have a circumstance where you believe it's locked in and you know what the vote's going to be, it's still important to give people time to have their voices heard," Casey said in an interview. "Because you’ve never seen anything like this in recent American history."

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.