Governor Mikie Sherrill deserves praise for doing something that should be routine in public life but has become remarkably rare: she acknowledged that government failed.
A serious software error in New Jersey’s motor vehicle system improperly registered approximately 6,600 people who had expressly indicated that they were not United States citizens. Fewer than 400 subsequently cast ballots. Although the error occurred between June 2023 and June 2024, before Sherrill became governor. She did not pretend that nothing serious had happened. She ordered the registrations removed, launched an investigation, and began replacing the vendor responsible for the system.
Sherrill correctly described herself as “appalled” by the failures that permitted it to occur. She did not personally cause the mistake, but she accepted responsibility for fixing it.
That distinction is important. Taking ownership does not require accepting blame for something that happened before you arrived. It means recognizing that once you hold public office, the problems of government become your problems. Sherrill identified the facts, acknowledged the seriousness of the error, and announced corrective action.
She also rejected the unsupported claim that the mistake proves that American elections are generally fraudulent. That is precisely the right balance. Democrats should not minimize a genuine election-administration failure merely because Donald Trump may exaggerate it. Nor should they accept his broader claim that our elections are routinely stolen.
The answer to exaggeration is not denial. It is accuracy, transparency and corrective action.
That may also be the path Democrats need to win the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential election.
American voters do not expect their political leaders to be perfect. They do expect them to recognize reality. They want leaders who can say: We were wrong. We learned something. We are fixing it.
Unfortunately, too many Democrats have treated every admission of error as a surrender to Republicans. That instinct has damaged the party’s credibility. A position does not become false merely because Fox News discusses it, and a public concern does not disappear merely because Donald Trump exaggerates it.
Democrats should begin with the border.
The Biden administration’s management of the southern border was a mistake. Democrats can continue to support legal immigration, humane treatment of migrants and a pathway to legal status for deserving longtime residents while acknowledging that the federal government lost operational control of the asylum system.
By February 2024, 80 percent of Americans said the federal government was doing a bad job handling the large number of migrants at the border. That included 73 percent of Democrats. President Biden eventually imposed significant restrictions on asylum claims in June 2024, but by then the public had concluded that the Biden administration was an abject failure on border control.
Democrats should say so plainly. A secure border and a generous legal immigration system are not contradictory. In fact, maintaining public support for immigration requires the government to demonstrate that it can enforce the law and determine who enters the country. The law establishes immigration quotas. Those quotas can be increased or changed as employment needs change.
Democrats must be honest about President Biden’s decision to seek reelection.
Joe Biden served the country for decades and achieved important things as President. Respect for that service, however, should not require rewriting what occurred in 2024. His age and health had become legitimate public concerns. The public deserved greater candor about his condition, and he should not have sought another term.
By July 2024, 65 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to withdraw from the race, and nearly half of Democrats lacked confidence in his mental capacity to serve effectively. He ultimately withdrew only after the presidential debate made the problem impossible to avoid. Since the election, prominent Democrats have acknowledged that his delayed departure damaged the party and deprived it of a normal competitive primary process.
Admitting that does not require repudiating Biden’s entire presidency. It requires recognizing that loyalty to one person cannot take precedence over candor to the country.
Democrats should bring the same honesty to questions involving sex and gender.
In 2025, the United Kingdom Supreme Court unanimously held that the terms “man,” “woman” and “sex” in that nation’s Equality Act refer to biological sex. It was a decision interpreting a particular statute, not a declaration that transgender people should be mistreated or deprived of civil rights. Indeed, the court expressly emphasized that transgender people remain protected from discrimination.
That is a sensible distinction Democrats should be capable of making. Every person deserves dignity, personal safety, employment protection and freedom from harassment. At the same time, biological sex is real and can be relevant in competitive sports, medical treatment, data collection and certain single-sex facilities.
The public has already reached a clearer position than many Democratic activists. Gallup found that 69 percent of Americans believe transgender athletes should compete on teams corresponding to their sex at birth, while 66 percent believe birth sex should be recorded on government identification documents. Democrats should listen without treating everyone who holds those views as prejudiced.
Compassion does not require the denial of biology, just as acknowledging biology does not justify cruelty.
Democrats should address the affordability crisis by looking forward, not backward.
Telling voters that the economy was strong under Joe Biden because unemployment was low or gross domestic product was growing did not correlate to what Americans were experiencing at the supermarket, at the pharmacy or when opening an electric bill or putting gas in the car. This is the fatal mistake that Trump’s MAGA Republicans are making today.
Economic and personal-finance concerns remain the public’s leading priorities in 2026. Approximately seven in ten Americans identify an economic issue as something government should address, while immigration and health care also remain near the top of the national agenda.
Democrats should not compare the Trump economy to the Biden economy and suggest that things were better under Biden. The pandemic clearly impacted the economy under Biden, just as the tariffs and the war in Iran are impacting the Trump economy. The difference, of course, is that the Pandemic was an act of God. The Tarriff and the war in Iran is an act of Trump.
Democrats need to emphasize that Trumps policies such as the so called “big beautiful” tax bill, the student loan crisis, the reduction or outright elimination of government oversight, the creation of a privileged and protected billionaire elite, federal regulatory agencies that discourage competition and other Trump policies are causing today’s affordability crisis. Democrats should certainly not suggest that Biden’s economy was better. Instead, Democrats should talk about how they will do things to end the Trump policies that are causing today’s affordability crisis.
Public safety presents another opportunity for candor, not platitudes.
Democrats can support police accountability and criminal-justice reform while admitting that citizens are entitled to safe streets, functioning transit systems and orderly public spaces. Compassion and public order are not opposites. Safety is itself a civil right, especially in lower-income communities where residents cannot purchase private security or insulate themselves from neighborhood disorder.
None of this requires Democrats to sound like Republicans, nor does it require Democrats to call for defunding the police.
Conclusion
Admitting mistakes is not capitulation. It is leadership.
Governor Sherrill just demonstrated the formula for success: Identify the problem before political opponents define it. Disclose the facts. Accept institutional responsibility. Correct the mistake. Defend Democratic values without denying what the public can see with its own eyes and experience with their own pocketbooks.
Sherrill’s decisive election as governor was built around affordability, competence and accountable government. Her response to the voter-registration failure reinforces that political identity. She is showing Democrats that strength does not come from refusing to admit mistakes. It comes from having enough confidence in your principles to confront mistakes honestly.
The Democratic Party does not need better excuses. It needs more leaders willing to say that government got something wrong and then demonstrate that they can make it right.
Mikie Sherrill is showing Democrats the pathway to success in the midterms and in 2028.
