A CURIOUS mixture of cockiness and angst grips Democrats as they contemplate the next presidential election season, which—dreadful to relate—is now under way. For their party is at once in a strikingly strong position, and has not looked so weak in years.

Start with the party’s strengths. Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, senator and first lady, announced that the first big rally of her campaign for the presidential nomination would take place on June 13th, on an island off Manhattan. The event is certain to be packed out. Mrs Clinton is not just very famous; she enjoys poll leads over every Republican thought to be running for the White House (a pack that looks like growing to 16 contenders).

Democrats now also know that Mrs Clinton will face a contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, allowing her to hone her campaign skills and messages. On May 30th Martin O’Malley (above), a telegenic, guitar-playing former governor of Maryland, launched a challenge to her. He spoke at a sun-dappled event overlooking Baltimore harbour, flanked by artfully chosen representatives of fast-growing voter blocs that twice helped Barack Obama to win the White House, including Hispanics, urbanites and young women. Mr O’Malley was introduced by a young, gay Afro-Latino student without legal immigration status, who thanked him for supporting migrant rights and gay marriage in the state.

Nor are fans of economic populism forgotten. Activists have reluctantly concluded that their heroine, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, is not running, suspending their “Run Warren Run” campaign. But they are rallying to Senator Bernie Sanders, a snowy-haired tribune of the left who began his campaign in earnest on May 26th, and who has been wowing meetings in Iowa.

On paper, then, the party is well-placed to mobilise different elements of the Obama coalition. The so-far-declared Democratic candidates sound in near-lockstep on big progressive causes. All support gay marriage and the right to abortion. They believe that government must tackle climate change, and want millions of migrants currently in America without legal papers to be allowed to stay and eventually enjoy a path to citizenship.

On one day every four years, when the presidency is at stake, the voter blocs of that Obama coalition pose a daunting challenge to Republicans. Whit Ayres, a pollster advising Senator Marco Rubio, a Floridian Republican running for president, summed up the problem in a recent book: “2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America”. Demographic groups that form the core of Republican support—older whites, blue-collar whites, married people and rural residents—are declining as a share of the electorate, Mr Ayres notes. In 2012 Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, picked up 59% of white votes. But he won just 17% of non-white votes. In 2016 America will be still less white, so that even if Republicans match Mr Romney’s performance among whites, they will need 30% of non-white votes to take the White House—a feat the party did not achieve in 2012, 2008 or even in 2004, when George W. Bush, trading on his popularity in Texas, enjoyed the backing of Hispanics in his re-election.

Yet Democrats have serious weaknesses, too. Put bluntly, Mrs Clinton is their only serious candidate for the presidency. The crowd at Mr O’Malley’s launch was neither large nor confident that Maryland’s ex-governor has any chance of overtaking Mrs Clinton. Indeed, many in attendance did not want Mrs Clinton stopped, instead expressing hopes that Mr O’Malley’s entry into the race might simply tug the front-runner a bit to the left. Mr O’Malley drew most applause when he cited claims that big bank bosses would be happy to see Mrs Clinton or Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida (and a son and brother to presidents) win the White House. “Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street,” Mr O’Malley declared. “The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.” The cheers were mostly venting: a CNN poll on June 2nd showed 60% of Democrats backing Mrs Clinton for the presidential nomination. Her nearest rival, Vice-President Joe Biden, was on 14%, though (especially since the death on May 30th of his son Beau) he shows no signs of running. Mr O’Malley was on 1%.

The CNN poll gives Mr Sanders 10% of the Democratic vote. But activists at Sanders rallies are indulging in a holiday from political reality when they cheer his calls for state-run universal health care, free tuition at public universities and taxpayer-funded elections. That might be a fine platform in France. It is unserious in America (as is the proposal of Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator and independent governor of Rhode Island, who launched a Democratic presidential bid on June 3rd, to switch America to the metric system).

Mrs Clinton’s dominance worries even supporters, who know they have few options if she stumbles, or is overtaken by scandals related to her family’s charitable foundation or her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state, to name just two possibilities. Weeks of news reports probing the finances of Mrs Clinton and her husband, Bill, have already left a mark. Two new polls show sharp falls in the number of Americans who trust her. In part, Mrs Clinton’s stature explains the Democrats’ lack of a deep bench of swing-state governors or senators with eyes on the presidency. But in part their thin bench reflects a broader weakness in recent non-presidential elections. The reasons are complex. The Obama coalition includes many sporadic voters who skip state and local contests. Lots of Democratic votes are packed inefficiently into super-safe urban districts (many with gerrymandered boundaries). The results are simply brutal. In Washington Republicans enjoy their largest majority in the House of Representatives since 1946, while the elections of 2014 were a bloodbath for Democratic senators in conservative states. Republicans control 69 of 99 state legislature chambers, and 31 of 50 governors’ mansions.