Senate Democrats’ Surprising Strategy: Trying to Align With Trump

Congressional Democrats, divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Donald J. Trump that put him at odds with his own party.

On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles.

.. Mr. Trump campaigned on some issues that Democrats have long championed and Republicans resisted: spending more on roads, bridges and rail, punishing American companies that move jobs overseas, ending a lucrative tax break for hedge fund and private equity titans, and making paid maternity leave mandatory.

.. Some Democrats are even co-opting Mr. Trump’s language from the campaign. “Every single person in our caucus agrees the system is rigged,”

.. “There is an acknowledgment that it is very shortsighted to blame this loss on a letter from the F.B.I.

.. Tim Ryan of Ohio, a former football player from the ailing industrial region around Youngstown, is talking about challenging Ms. Pelosi

.. Democrats need someone “like me, who has constituents and friends who are steelworkers or work in construction,”

.. “We can work with him on things we agree on,” Mr. Brown said. “On Bannon, no.”