It’s safe to say that most Pennsylvania Democrats are chastened by their loss of the White House, the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Casey and three row offices. In 2016, many Democrats saw Donald J. Trump as illegitimate, but that’s harder to do now after he won the popular as well as electoral vote.

How will Democrats respond to voters in the second Trump administration and rebuild their political brand?

Sen. John Fetterman is a high-profile example of how some Democrats expect to win back voters: by showing that they are willing to work with President Trump. Since the election, Fetterman has proved amenable to the president, meeting with him in Mar-a-Lago and voting for several of his Cabinet nominees. This has made Fetterman more popular with Republican voters, but Democrats may now view him as unreliable, as they saw former Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Fetterman’s willingness to join Republicans in voting to put Dr. Mehmet Oz in charge of Medicare and Medicaid makes for great political theater, though not all Democrats are enjoying the show.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is the consummate pragmatist, but he’s also challenged the administration. The Trump/Musk shock-and-awe campaign of cutting jobs and freezing spending is starting to have real-world effects here in the commonwealth. Shapiro launched a lawsuit against the federal government for freezing various allocated funds that totaled $2.1 billion. His lawsuit has proven successful.

Left unresolved are the overhead costs of the state’s $1.8 billion in NIH funding for 2024, the lion’s share going to the Universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Both Pitt and Penn have frozen admissions to all doctoral programs.

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton is another Democratic Party pragmatist. Like Shapiro, she argues that the reality of divided government means compromise.

“Divided government calls for pragmatic governance,” she responded by email. “It means that everything we accomplish in the Pennsylvania General Assembly must be bipartisan, and so we must look for opportunities to find broadly supported solutions that still meet the basic needs of those who elected us.”

Democrats do seem likely, however, to propose some things that Republicans in the state House and the state Senate (where the GOP holds the majority) will reject: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years, protecting access to reproductive health and legalizing recreational marijuana (among others).

Adjusted for inflation, $7.25 is lower than the national minimum wage in 1942, when it was 40 cents an hour. Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is lower than that of all neighboring states, including West Virginia. Democratic hopes for a higher minimum wage are unlikely to reach fruition before 2026, but the hourly wage will remain a campaign issue as Democrats hope to expand their seats in the legislature.

McClinton believes that voters are rewarding Pennsylvania Democrats for their pragmatism, at least in the House.

“Last year’s election results affirmed that people across Pennsylvania approved of how Democrats led the state House,” she said. “They saw that we delivered on an agenda that put them first — things like cutting taxes for seniors, making childcare more affordable for working families, and lowering prescription drug prices.”

Some Democrats argue that voters don’t see the good things they do and are instead influenced by how the party is portrayed in the media. Speaker McClinton sees building voter relationships as crucial to countering the negative images

“As state representatives we are close to our neighbors,”she said. “They see us at local events, stop by our offices, and talk to us directly — the relationship we have is more personal than voters can have with statewide or national officials. We also leverage traditional and social media to listen to our neighbors’ concerns and to let them know what we are doing to help them.”

In their own ways, Fetterman, Shapiro and McClinton are all acting on a belief that the Pennsylvania electorate will reward those public officials who deliver real-world results. Should Trump’s policies reignite inflation or deepen economic hardship, Democrats may stand to gain, simply by not being Republicans.

Time will tell if Democrats’ faith in Pennsylvania voters’ horse sense, and in their own ability to improve people’s lives, will be rewarded.

(John Hinshaw is a professor of history at Lebanon Valley College.)