Democrats try out a strange new emotion at What’s Next conference in Denver — hope

DENVER | When Democrats started planning a post-midterms conference in Denver months ago, political consultant Stephanie Valencia figured it would be more of the same — a bunch of strategists poring over the latest results and plotting a path forward in a country dominated by President Donald Trump. She never expected that her party would still be celebrating what they consider a dream election, where they won virtually every contested race, flipped U.S. Senate seats in Mississippi and South Carolina, turned Texas blue and won big majorities in Congress. “I did not expect to be coming here with so much hope,” said Valencia, the co-founder of Equis, which researches Latino voters. “For the first time we can see the outlines of a post-Trump era.” Democrats spent two days chewing over their future at the What’s Next conference and trying to deal with the fact that it looks, for a moment at least, quite bright.

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