Democrats Will Lose
in 2028 Unless They Change Course Now
Jan. 15, 2026
Credit...Carolina
Moscoso
By David Plouffe
Mr.
Plouffe is a veteran Democratic political strategist.
In election after
election last year, Democrats had big wins everywhere. Voters who swung hard to
President Trump swung hard back. These moments are incredibly rare. Trust me.
It may be discordant,
then, to believe the party is still in crisis. It’s much easier to hope that
the storm has passed, that the deep unpopularity of Mr. Trump and the MAGA
movement and the mess they are creating will be enough to right the ship.
I certainly wish it were
so. But to win races in politically unforgiving, even hostile, territory will
require the party to overhaul its broken brand and stale agenda by elevating
new faces and new leaders who promise to chart a course enough voters believe
in.
Why? Because to have any hope of
fixing the root problems that plague our democracy and our economy, Democrats
need a majority that lasts, like the New Deal coalition. At least three, maybe
more, Supreme Court justices could retire over the coming decade. Without
sustained Democratic political power and control during that period, a
conservative 8-to-1 court is not out of the question.
That possibility should
focus the mind. Right now, Democrats have no credible path to sustained control
of the Senate and the White House. After the adjustments to the Electoral
College map that look likely to come with the next census, the Democratic presidential
nominee could win all the states won by Kamala Harris plus the blue wall of
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still fall short of the 270 electoral
votes needed to win. An already unforgiving map becomes more so. This is
equally true of the Senate.
I’ve helped lead three
of the past five Democratic presidential campaigns, most recently for 107 days
with Ms. Harris. There were fewer voters available to her and therefore fewer
paths to victory in 2024 than in previous elections. That has to change. It
can, but not with the same recipes, slightly warmed over. It has to be change
people can believe in, to quote a slogan from not too long ago. The existential
question now is: How do Democrats get back to playing and winning in more
places?
First, make our
unpopular president and his vassals own everything — higher energy and health
care costs, higher food bills, war. The Republicans in Congress stood by meekly
as Mr. Trump took a wrecking ball to our economy. They deserve the blame for
it.
Democrats won sweeping
victories in 2025 despite being less favorably viewed than the G.O.P. They
overwhelmingly won voters who hate both parties, an echo of the double-haters
cohort from 2016. Why? Because MAGA has complete control. Voters will usually choose
a flawed alternative to a discredited incumbent.
That is Task 1. As important as it is,
it’s far easier than Task 2. James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced
can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it’s faced.” Democrats must
face, honestly, where we are and how we are perceived.
That starts with
offering a fresh agenda that voters believe can make a difference in their
lives, not the same stuff they heard from Democratic candidates in recent
years.
Each candidate is
different. That said, the ideas below should find a home almost anywhere.
A plan to bring down costs. Just running against those who have caused prices to
skyrocket gets you a lot of the way there but not far enough. Democrats should
promise to investigate and stop price gouging. Get rid of Mr. Trump’s
inflation-inducing tariffs. Build millions more apartments and homes. Establish
universal child care. Expand Medicare to cover home health costs for family
caregivers. The list of ideas that would save voters real money is long. Make
choices, make it short, and make it sing. If it can’t be communicated in an
Instagram post or 10-second TikTok, go back to the drawing board. Make it about
tangibly cutting the cost of living for people, not an ideological wish list.
A plan to create the jobs
America needs. Candidates could be honest about
their districts’ shortages of nurses, police officers, teachers, auto mechanics
and plumbers. Through tax incentives, training, tuition assistance and a
relentless focus on what’s needed, candidates should call for specific numbers
of people to be hired over the next four years. A specific job is more credible
than a generic job. This is a national economic security urgency. Auto
insurance rates are skyrocketing in part because repair costs are surging,
because there aren’t enough mechanics. Many of these jobs won’t be displaced by
artificial intelligence, at least not immediately. Candidates must make voters
believe that they will wake up every day and work on adding these kinds of
opportunities.
A plan for A.I. It will play a much bigger role in the 2026 elections
than many people thought just a few months ago, and it could be the dominant
issue of the 2028 campaign. A.I.’s role in our lives, society and economy is
likely to only grow, especially since we are in a battle for supremacy with
China. But we have to ask questions, create some guardrails and force tech
giants to be more transparent about their data and algorithms, about how they
identify deepfakes and about their plans to mitigate the downstream negative
effects of their products. Elon Musk has said that A.I. and robots will kill all jobs.
That’s a pretty negative downstream effect.
Start with A.I.’s toxic
stew of higher energy costs, job losses, chatbot mental health misuse and
misinformation. Then consider how the revenue from these activities will go to
the wealthiest people on the planet. The Trump administration and its allies in
Congress want to give tech companies a full green light and tell the people,
you’re on your own. Democrats should exploit that political opening. I asked
ChatGPT to spit out an ad that captured the argument.
Visuals: Empty factory
floors. A family sitting in the dark as power bills pile up. A young man
staring blankly at a computer screen. A rocket launches, symbolizing
billionaire wealth soaring.
Narrator (serious,
urgent tone):
“Politicians told us
A.I. would make life better. But what did it really bring? Lost jobs. Sky-high
energy bills. Mental health in crisis. And the billionaires? They got richer —
while we got left behind.
“Every time they side
with Big Tech, they’re choosing profits over people.
“It’s time to ask: Whose
future are they building? Because it sure isn’t ours.”
Tagline: “Hold them accountable. Say
no to A.I. greed.”
Not bad. Add political consultants to
the endangered occupation list.
A plan for reform. There is valuable ground to occupy highlighting where the
political system, regardless of which party is in power, is hurting the
American people. Candidates should create an ambitious reform agenda. Term
limits and lifetime lobbying bans for members of Congress. A ban on stock
trading. Rules for elected officials and their crypto holdings. Guardrails for
prediction markets. Maybe even consider a constitutional amendment banning
presidential pardons. Mr. Trump’s corruption makes such proposals more relevant
and powerful. Too many Democrats still stand in the way of cleaning up
government. You can’t go far enough in this lane if you are an outsider
candidate challenging the broken status quo.
Democrats have come to
be seen as the defenders of institutions that voters, especially young ones,
feel are badly broken. It’s a deadly political place to be. The party can win a
debate about how to reform and modernize government when it’s up against a MAGA
worldview where there are no rules at all, especially for the powerful. But not
if they continue to be seen as the standard bearers of a broken status quo.
Hold your own leaders to
account. The Democratic establishment too
often folds when it should fight and is too in love with process. It wants to
perfect the world but is not maniacally focused on improving the lives of those
living in it right now. Too often, it doesn’t apply the same rules to itself
that it believes the other side should follow. Candidates should challenge
those instincts: They should call for new leadership and say that, if elected,
they won’t support the current crop. In 2024 we saw the hunger for more
independence from the Democratic status quo. People want change, everywhere.
Candidates should blow
the whistle on a poorly performing program or a law or regulation that’s
outlived its usefulness. See how Zohran Mamdani captured in his halal cart
video the pain that poor licensing rules cause entrepreneurs and consumers. If
Democrats get better about focusing on results, cutting red tape and getting
things done for people, on time and under budget — what’s become known as the
abundance agenda — it makes the populist call for higher taxes on the
wealthiest even more powerful.
Swing voters, much like the Democratic
base, believe the richest should pay more. But they don’t think the proceeds
will be spent well. If Democrats convince them otherwise and follow through,
they will avoid being trapped in a debate about whether to choose populism or
abundance. Both strategies could work together to deliver results.
The hole Democrats are in is deep. But
so is MAGA’s. And it can’t dig out while Mr. Trump is astride the project. It’s
a gift in any competitive arena to have your opponents stuck in place. It gives
you a chance to improve your position while they are trapped in theirs. This
asymmetry won’t last forever. It needs to be seized and maximized. And it all
hangs in the balance.
