Dems' rout opens door to "big test" and a packed 2028 field

Dems' rout opens door to "big test" and a packed 2028 field

3 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Dems' rout opens door to "big test" and a packed 2028 field

*Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios*

Democrats of all political stripes won so big on Tuesday that the party didn't settle its long-running civil war between moderates and progressives.

* Instead, the party's historic victories gave each faction some reasons to claim that its brand of Democrats can defeat the GOP in 2028.

**Driving the news:** Democratic operatives are sure of one thing, though: Tuesday's blowout wins mean that more party leaders will be willing to run for the White House than if the midterms hadn't gone so well.

* Barack Obama's 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina, told Bloomberg TV this week that he's already met with *29* potential candidates.

**Zoom in:** On Tuesday, moderate Democrats won. Progressives won. Even one-time socialists won.

* In Michigan, for example, unapologetic progressive Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed won by 7 points after running on Medicare for All.

**In the same state**, William Lawrence, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America before he let his membership lapse recently, flipped a key swing district.

* Those results were good news for New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist with a national profile who went all-in on electing El-Sayed — and is considering a run for president in two years.

**More moderate Senate candidates** who frequently talked about their faith on the campaign trail — such as Texas' James Talarico and Kansas' Adam Hamilton — pulled off huge upsets in deep-red states, and in the process created a model for some Democrats to follow.

* Their mild-mannered, religion-infused campaigns mirrored former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential run.

**For the past year,** AOC, Buttigieg and other Democrats eyeing the White House have been laying the groundwork to turn the 2026 elections into a springboard for their potential presidential campaigns.

* Some put their chips on specific candidates — and virtually all of them succeeded.
* Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a centrist technocrat who campaigned on "getting sh\*t done," won reelection by 22 points. His long coattails helped Democrats win four new House seats and a trifecta in his state's government.

**Former Vice President Kamala Harris**, who urged voters to push back against the Supreme Court's ruling threatening Black representation in Congress, saw her efforts to help boost Black turnout across the South pay off.

* Harris also campaigned with Black gubernatorial candidates in Nevada and Wisconsin who won — and a third Black Senate contender who's on the cusp of flipping a Senate seat in Mississippi in what would be a historic win.
* Also good for Harris: Georgia's Keisha Lance Bottoms made history as the first Black woman in the country to win a governor's race.

**In Georgia, Sen. Jon Ossoff** won a second term by 18 points.

* Because Bottoms as governor would be able to appoint a replacement to a vacated Senate seat, Ossoff — or Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, another potential White House contender in 2028 — wouldn't have to worry about a Republican temporarily filling his position if he were to win the presidency.

**What they're saying:** What happens next for the party is "a big question mark," said Lauren Hitt, a Democratic strategist who advises moderates and progressives.

* "We're going to spend a year fighting out who actually has the mandate — left/center/populist — and then in 2028 we'll have our answer."
* Some Democratic operatives believe that the through-line of their wins was simply *change* — and that the next presidential nominee should represent a new direction more than any policy, identity or ideology.

**The other side:** Some Democrats hope that Tuesday's results signal that the factional warfare that has defined their party for much of the past decade might be coming to an end — or at least entering a new phase.

* "We've just come to this place as a Democratic Party where it's not one wing — it's all of the wings," said Jane Kleeb, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees.
* In 2028, "it will be interesting to see which candidates can communicate to the primary voter that they are not only from one wing of the party," she added.
* "That's going to be the big test."