Senate Dems Double Down On DEI As Rest Of Country Runs The Other Way

Even with seemingly the entire country shifting away from diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Senate Democrats are beefing up their DEI bonafides as they launch their effort to win back the upper chamber.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – the campaign arm of Senate Democrats – recently retooled its leadership team for the 2026 election cycle. One of the top hires, according to Axios, was for an operative named Jessica Knight Henry to be its chief diversity and inclusion officer.

The new hire immediately posted a resume bank on LinkedIn for the 2026 election cycle asking candidates to submit optional “DEI information” to help “build diverse, strategic teams” at the DSCC. The resume bank also gives numerous gender identities for applicants to choose from, including “Woman (cis),” “Man (cis),” “Trans* woman / Transfeminine,” “Trans* man / Transmasculine,” “Non-binary,” “Prefer not to say,” and “other.”

The resume bank also asks candidates for their sexual orientation, providing options such as “Heterosexual or straight,” “Gay or lesbian,” “Bisexual,” “Pansexual,” “Asexual,” “Prefer not to say,” and “Other,” which can be left blank.

Recent polls have found that Americans have gotten tired of DEI practices. A poll from CRC Advisors provided exclusively to The Daily Wire found that 66% of respondents opposed the idea of their company “relying on race, gender identity, and sexuality-based hiring and promotion practices?” A majority of Democrats and liberals – 54% each – also said they oppose the discriminatory practice.

A similar poll conducted by Fox News around the same time found that nearly one-third of voters said it was “extremely important” that Trump move to cut DEI initiatives.

Companies have also moved to distance themselves from the practice, including Target, saying it understood “the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape.” Target is now scaling back its pledge to invest more than $2 billion in black-owned businesses, adding more than 500 black-owned brands, and increasing the exposure of diverse brands through paid media. As part of its scaling back, Target will no longer focus on diversity when choosing suppliers, The Daily Wire reported.

Walmart, McDonald’s, Meta, and many others have also said they would be scaling back their DEI practices. Some companies, like Costco and JP Morgan Chase, and publicly refused to end their racist hiring practices.

In addition to businesses, some schools have also announced they would scale back their DEI efforts, including the University of Minnesota.

In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate DEI from the federal government. In response, incoming Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr announced that he eliminated DEI practices from his agency.

“Promoting invidious forms of discrimination runs contrary to the Communications Act and deprives Americans of their rights to fair and equal treatment under the law. It also represents a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer resources,” Carr said. “Nonetheless, the FCC joined other private and public sector institutions in promoting discriminatory DEl policies during the Biden Administration. The FCC did so by embedding DEl in its strategic priorities, budget requests, advisory groups, rulemaking proceedings, and many other components of its official work.”

The Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has also gutted its DEI programs from the U.S. military, The Daily Wire reported.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEl) policies, as defined in the January 27, 2025, Executive Order, are incompatible with the values of DoD,” Hegseth wrote. “The DoD will strive to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.”

Democrats currently have just 47 Senators, the fewest they’ve had since 2014. To reclaim the majority in the 2026 midterms, they will have to win back control of four seats, which, given the map and the party’s unpopularity with voters, will be a major lift.