WASHINGTON » There was no ideological soul-searching; few, if any, recriminations aimed at political strategists; and little backbiting or assignment of blame.

Instead, the nation’s leading club of liberal philanthropists and political donors, gathered in Washington for a four-day strategy session, appeared ready to shrug off the drubbing Democrats suffered in the midterm elections last week, instead laying plans for what they hoped would be a long-term resurgence of progressive ideas.

Donors and officials involved with the group, the Democracy Alliance, said they did not believe the elections had fundamentally upended their assumptions about what Democrats and liberal organizations needed to do to regain power in Congress and state capitols — a significant difference from their counterparts on the right, who answered their substantial losses in the 2012 presidential election with a top-down effort to broaden the appeal of the Republican Party and the political abilities of grass-roots organizations.

In a sign of how the passions of large donors have come to define the landscape of issues in national elections, alliance members are poised to expand funding to fight for new climate-change measures and restrictions on money in politics. Neither issue galvanized enough midterm voters to sway pivotal Senate or House races, despite the tens of millions of dollars that wealthy donors like Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate-change activist, spent promoting them.

The alliance is also redoubling efforts to organize what it calls the new American electorate — Latinos, blacks, young people and single women — amid signs that the conservative tilt and high political participation of older white voters have given the Republican Party a significant advantage in midterm elections. Its president, Gara LaMarche, said it was not planning to expand fundraising for Democratic super PACs and advertising-oriented outside groups, which spent tens of millions of dollars attacking Republicans in the last election cycle but have complained about being outraised and outspent by their Republican counterparts.

"I don’t think the way to read the election, tough as it was, is as invalidating the core truth of some of these approaches," said LaMarche, a veteran of liberal philanthropic circles who became the alliance’s president last year. "We had a data edge that we maintained for a couple of election cycles, and that may be diminishing. They did a poor job of vetting candidates in the last election, and we benefited from that, and they’ve gotten smarter about that. People knew this would be a challenging election."

The alliance has more than 100 members, about 20 of them added in the past year. It includes major liberal donors like the retired hedge-fund founder George Soros and Tim Gill, the country’s leading giver to gay-rights causes, as well as top officials at some labor unions. Historically, the alliance has focused on building what it calls infrastructure for the left, such as the voter data cooperative Catalist; the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank; and Media Matters for America, which seeks to counteract what it considers conservative influence in the news media.

Most of the groups for which the alliance itself raises money are nonprofits that do not report their donors, making it difficult to assess just how much money the network accumulates. LaMarche said donations earmarked through the alliance accounted for well over $30 million in 2014. But alliance members, known as partners, have contributed at least several times that amount to progressive organizations operating in national and state politics, as well as to Democratic super PACs.

Dozens of donors, consultants and groups seeking funding from the alliance began arriving in Washington on Wednesday. They were expected to debate and discuss a six-year plan, titled Vision 2020, to rebuild liberal power in hopes of a Democratic resurgence in Washington in years to come.

The title is a blunt acknowledgment that Republican control of Congress is likely to provide few openings for ambitious liberal policymaking in the final two years of the Obama administration. It also reflects the alliance’s belief that liberals are fighting on terrain largely defined in 2010, when Republicans won control of many state legislatures and governorships and used that power to draw safe districts for their party’s majority in the House.

"Regaining power in the states and promoting progressive policy in the states is going to be a top priority," LaMarche said. "I think it is underscored by the election results."

The alliance is also expanding funding for research and policy advocacy around what LaMarche described as a historic point of unity within center-left politics: the need to address the stagnating American middle class and rising wealth inequality.

Those scheduled to speak Thursday included Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, which seeks to elect Democratic women, and Kathay Feng, president of California Common Cause, which favors tighter restrictions on campaign money. They will discuss the midterm elections and the 2016 elections, alongside Chris Lehane, a political strategist for Steyer.

In an email, Lehane said he believed Steyer’s climate-change spending had been effective in raising turnout among environmentalist-minded voters in states like Colorado, and in building networks of new activists in politically important states like Iowa.

"These conversations remind me very much of the conversations I had in 2004 about same-sex marriage, where there was a lack of understanding that social change is a longitudinal exercise but that it moves very quickly, and the party positioned on the issue is the party that benefits long-term," Lehane said. "It is a sword to appeal to voters, like millennials, who will determine political winners and losers, as well as a sword to deflect the big-oil-funded Republican Party."

Another attendee, David desJardins, said Wednesday that he believed liberals needed to focus on the disconnect, evident in some election returns, between Democrats’ success in winning over the public on specific issues and their difficulty in winning elections.

"We’ve done a lot of advocacy around issues, like the minimum wage or pot, but people still don’t trust Democrats enough to vote for them," said desJardins, an alliance board member and a major donor to Democratic candidates and groups. "People vote for the minimum wage, but the same people may still vote for Scott Walker."

Nicholas Confessore, New York Times

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