‘The behind-the-scenes work starts today’: The 2028 shadow primary is underway

Josh Shapiro is already fielding calls from Democratic Party leaders in Pennsylvania urging him to run for president. Gavin Newsom held a Friday call with about 50,000 people in his small-donor network and called a special legislative session designed to Trump-proof California. And Pete Buttigieg is set to tout his Cabinet accomplishments in a series of events as he winds down his official role.

Democrats are only a few days into recriminations over why they blew the presidential race. But conversations and moves by ambitious Democrats focused on 2028 have already begun.

Kamala Harris, of course, could still run again, and centered herself as the leader of the movement against Trumpism in her concession at Howard University. But potential rivals are already entertaining entreaties from their backers to make moves, testing their fundraising operations, and situating themselves as leaders of the resistance to Donald Trump in the states.

For Democrats’ rising stars, there was a silver lining in the blow dealt to them by Trump’s victory. Before Harris’ defeat, it looked like a generation of Democratic talent might be sidelined for a decade or more. Now, they have a new lease on a political future at a time when the party is searching for a way back from the wilderness.

“The public 2028 campaign starts the first day Trump is in office, when he signs his first executive order,” said Dan Sena, a consultant who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “But the behind-the-scenes work starts today, the moving and maneuvering is well underway now.”

The primary field, as it was in 2020, could be gigantic, including any number of governors, lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries. In addition to Harris, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, is drawing attention inside the Harris-Walz orbit.

“When Democrats start talking about 2028, six months ago, Walz's name wouldn't have been on the list, now it might be on the top,” a former Harris staffer, granted anonymity to assess the field, told POLITICO.

Near the top of the scrum of hopefuls, Newsom could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Harris’s loss, given the sheer amount of overlap between their California-based networks. With his final term up in two years, he has long been considered a future presidential contender and his team has been building up to the moment when there isn’t an incumbent in his path. Indeed, few Democrats are as prepared to launch a national campaign.

An emerging leader of the anti-Trump resistance, Newsom has a full-time political operation that includes Harris’ lead 2024 pollster and several of her current and former advisers; raised $151 million for himself and others since 2020; has a combined small-donor list that includes nearly 30 million emails and phone numbers and is close to some of the country’s biggest donors.

With his party suddenly on the outs, he’s leapt in to fill the void, calling his Democratic-dominated Legislature back to Sacramento for a special session to help safeguard the state from Trump on climate, immigration and reproductive rights — everything from abortion bans and slashing electric vehicles to deportation raids and withholding federal disaster aid.

But Newsom and his team have been hesitant to appear too hungry, believing Democrats are tired of 24/7 campaigning. Instead, he is working to emphasize the policy implications of Trump returning to office with the understanding that liberal California — more than any other state — is destined to be in the president-elect’s crosshairs.

On the political side, Newsom is re-activating his volunteer army that since June has sent a combined 33 million texts and logged 85,000 calls urging Democrats to vote in the presidential race. Newsom held a zoom call late Friday for his network where he promised to defend the state from Trump, but not to fight him just for the sake of partisan combat.

“I revere this country, I revere the presidency, and I want our president to succeed and our job — my job — is not to wake up every single day and get a crowbar and try to put it in the spokes of the wheel of the Trump administration,” Newsom said. “In that spirit of an open hand, not a closed fist, that's how we want to proceed. That said … I'm not naive either, and we're pragmatic and we will stand firm.”

And then there are Harris’ discarded veep shortlisters, including Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and others who landed in the conversation, like Buttigieg and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

In the wake of Harris’ loss, some Democratic officials and operatives have looked to Shapiro as a kind of would-be savior, asking whether he could have helped carry Pennsylvania if Harris had chosen him as her running mate. As Shapiro’s national star has risen this year, he’s raised $9 million for his gubernatorial campaign, up for reelection in 2026. On the other hand, if the election was a test of his clout in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t enough to keep Harris from losing the state.

Buttigieg has neither ruled in or ruled out a 2028 bid, nor has he declined a potential run for Michigan governor in 2026 after relocating to the state and registering to vote there. But the soon to be outgoing transportation secretary, working in his personal capacity, dusted off his fundraising operation for the top of the ticket and showed he still had juice, raising $16 million for Harris and President Joe Biden — a few hundred thousand dollars more than Newsom raised for the team. In the final days of the campaign, he crisscrossed the Blue Wall states for the campaign. And on the eve of Election Day, he called Democrats up and down the ballot to check in on their races.

At 42, Buttigieg could also take a pass on the race and still run in the future. But his ability to communicate on Fox News and other hostile media environments may give him new purchase in a country that has drifted right. Even as he campaigned for down-ballot Michigan candidates the day before election, he heard requests to look at higher office himself. At one party headquarters he stopped in to greet volunteers, and a woman said to him, “We want to see you as president in our life.” He flashed a smile.

Buttigieg is expected to wrap up his Cabinet role by burnishing his and the Biden administration’s accomplishments in a series of events — including going back to his alma mater for the Harvard University Institute of Politics’ fireside chat in the next few days, where he will also talk “about the challenges facing the next administration.”

And nearly every one of the Democratic Party’s top prospects paraded through New Hampshire this year on campaign swings for Biden and then Harris that continued long after it was clear the erstwhile swing state would stay blue.

The roster was part 2020 retread — Buttigieg, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and even Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) — and part up-and-comers. Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer visited over the summer, the former in a bid to prop up Biden’s flailing campaign, the latter to promote Harris’ nascent candidacy. Pritzker came over Labor Day weekend, followed by Beshear in October. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) also paid a visit in October. Then, six days before an election that would hinge on his critical swing state, it was Shapiro’s turn.

Many of the same names — plus others such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — also made sure to include the state in their blitzes of key states’ breakfasts at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. California Rep. Ro Khanna, a frequent flier to New Hampshire, even sponsored the state’s breakfasts for the week.

The attention the party’s bench has showered on New Hampshire is both a blatant acknowledgment of future aspirations — “You all know how to pick a president,” Shapiro said during his breakfast stump — and a clear message that Biden’s attempt to strip the state of its spot atop the primary lineup in 2024 has not diminished its power in the presidential process going forward.

“My view is, we've got an incredible group of talented folks in the Democratic bench,” Khanna told reporters in August after speaking to New Hampshire’s DNC delegation. “And hopefully we will have our moment of leadership.”

Some have downplayed their ambitions in their visits to the state more than others. Whitmer, asked by POLITICO during her July campaign swing whether she’d be returning to New Hampshire down the line, said she was “not planning to do so in a political capacity” but would “like to come back and check out the state.”

But Beshear used his headlining slot at a New Hampshire Democrats’ dinner to promote himself as well as Harris.

“If I can introduce myself just a little bit,” the governor said, “I’m the guy who last November beat Mitch McConnell’s handpicked candidate. And I’m the guy who last November picked Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate.” To cheers, he went on to tout his bona fides as a “proud” pro-union, pro-choice and pro-public education Democrat in a deeply red state.

And the activists who showed up to New Hampshire’s restaurants and backyards and function halls to hear their party’s rising stars tout the top of this year’s ticket were already sizing up the next competition.

As she watched Shapiro glad-hand in a Concord bookshop one late October morning after stumping for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Joyce Craig, local Democratic activist Maura Willing marveled about the party’s deep bench.

Shapiro is “fantastic,” Willing said when asked whether she’d want to see him run for president someday. “We have so many great people. But if he was on the candidate list, yeah, absolutely … I’d support him.”