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