Democrats Eye 2028 as Battle for Identity Begins

Welcome to Paris Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation. I'm Geronimo Cortina. And I'm Brandon Roddinghouse. We're political science professors here at the University of Houston. And this week we're going to take a bit of a detour to talk about something that's important, but that's... Far on the horizon, but we'll be here before you know it. And that's the 2028 presidential election. My goodness, how did we get here so fast? I told you. You did tell me. And you're always sort of keeping your eye on what election is. And obviously, it's something that we should be concerned about because it's... being diagnosed right now. What happens in 2028 will be reflecting the 2026 midterm. So the messages, the coalitions, the issues will all be defined by what's going on right now. So we thought this is a good moment for us to kind of take a step back and look at kind of what's to come, in particular with the eye towards understanding how the Democrats in particular are going to approach this. They're not just picking a candidate. They're also picking a diagnosis for how to challenge Republicans. and a strategy for a way forward to be able to be strategic and win back the White House. So lots to talk about. It really, to me, was spurred by last week this headline that said that Kamala Harris is considering running again for president. And it thought to me that this is obviously a nonstop enterprise. We talk a lot in our classes about the concept of the invisible primary. Right. So this is obviously one of those key moments where everything is. scrutinized where they travel to, what they eat, how they dress, the way that they look, the issues they talk about are all part of this invisible primary. So give me your kind of rundown on what the invisible primary is and why it's important even today before we even have midterm elections. Right. Well, I mean, first of all, as you say, is he's not only picking the... people that are going to run, but it's also define the national identity of the Democratic Party. Not only at the national level, but obviously at the state level. And the interesting thing here is that... that national identity, especially when we're thinking about, for example, in terms of Texas, is a tension between picking, mobilizing the real base, to put it that way, younger progressive Democrats, or trying to build a broader statewide coalition. And we saw that, for example, in the case of James Talarico and in the case of Jasmine Crockett, right? But here, I think that this indisible party is... not only in terms of what you just mentioned, but also in terms of determine how these candidates are going to be treated as Sears candidates, right? If they're going to be real contenders or not. As you say, Kamala Harris, I don't think it's a good start for the Democratic Party to start that conversation right now in those terms. But also in terms of how...

the donors, these advocacy organizations, how party networks, the media, etc., etc. examine and take into account these quote-unquote invisible actors that are not very invisible. Yeah, and, you know, they're all notable politicians, right? Obviously, Harris is among the leaders. Oh, yes, absolutely. People like, though, Pete Buttigieg, who's maybe, you know, second tier, don't at me on this, but like, you know, there's a kind of definite, like, tiered strategy here because how visible you are, the kind of roles you've had, how much money you've raised, like, those are all things that in the invisible primary do matter. Right. It also matters kind of where. you go. The Democratic Party is actually in a bit of flux, not just with respect to ideology, as you mentioned, which we'll definitely talk about, but also with respect to kind of what they want the party to be, where geographically is the party's home base? So for a longest time, right, it was sort of Iowa, then New Hampshire, then South Carolina. But that's being upended because what you've got really is that Iowa totally flubbed the caucuses in 2020, and it just led to this disaster that made them, you know, get yanked off of that. national scene. Now Democrats are saying we basically have this kind of open seating policy like Southwest Airlines used to have, right? Kind of first come first serve. They're asking states to say, apply for admission. Tell us why you're the best to go first or forward in this process and then they can decide, you know, what then, you know, kind of looks like. So we're seeing heavy activity in some key states. Obviously the Iowa caucuses are still important. The New Hampshire primary is still important. A little bit different because that includes independence who could be persuaded. Democrats have to be careful and very knowledgeable about like what independence are wanting. South Carolina is obviously a major hub because it is really the cornerstone of the African American vote that we certainly saw in 2024. And also Nevada, right, which is a Western swing state. It's becoming more purple to blue and it's younger. It's more progressive. It's more Latino. It looks like the future of America. And so Democrats are trying to figure out, you know, where to spend your time. time, how much of a visit is too much, right? And, you know, whether they can get traction in those places or not. They're also looking for things like key endorsements. Those are big factors in terms of getting the kind of root of the Democratic Party kind of wrapped around their tree. That's a challenge because we generally consider the success in a presidential primary to be connected to what the elites want, right? Lots of scholars have decided this is sort of the way that sort of you know, the invisible primary functions. But increasingly, there's this kind of outsider ability. So a candidate like Donald Trump doesn't take the traditional route to get to the office. Democrats still kind of do just because the nature of the party is different than the nature of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party is more coalition driven. Republicans are more kind of ideologically bright line driven. So we certainly are going to see some changes there. But I think for the Democrats, they have to consider all these factors in this kind of moment, even before, you know, we've gotten any single votes. Right, because the end product of these movement and traveling here and getting money and stump beaches, et cetera, et cetera, it tells signals about what is the party move, right? On the one hand.

what are going to be also the signals in terms of turnout and what are going to be the signals in terms of the strategic direction that the party is going to go, especially when we're thinking about 2028. So all those things, when you put all those things together, are going to control the media cycle, don't know behavior, and obviously the perceptions that the public at large... has about the candidate because one thing is the primary, right? And the primary is the primary, right? That's why it's primary, right? But then you have the general election, and the general election, you have to start thinking about coalitions. But you cannot build coalitions in the general election if you didn't think about coalitions during the primary election, right? You cannot come up. And for example, that's something that we're seeing, potentially seeing the opposite, I think, reaction or... or effect that we see in the Tahriger campaign, that he started to build a more broader coalition, but kind of forgot the real base of the Democratic Party, right? And now it's going backwards and tried to rebuild that relationship. But you can have the opposite effect. And in Texas especially is... how you can assemble that coalition that is going to be capable of being competitive at a statewide election. Yeah. And I think that's a great perspective because that's the question for Democrats. They had done badly among coalition partners in 2024. It's what led to this shift to the Republican Party and what led to Republicans thinking they could gerrymander the whole country. That's backfired because you're seeing shifts back at least in polling. Now, how they're going to vote will be a very different story. We'll know more about that for the midterms, but that'll give us a preview of what's to come for 2028. But I want to ask you this question. And that's that like the rapidity of the cycle is, and we're already talking about 2028. There's so many things happening all at once that the question is like if this is sort of like bad speed dating where you have all these candidates, you've got at least a dozen. I want to talk about some of them, but at least a dozen Democrats who are thinking of running for president. That's a lot of people. Is it? Is there bandwidth for that in the Democratic Party? Are they overthinking it? Are they overthinking it in the sense that each of them have their own messages, they have their own coalitions, they want to go a different way, or underthinking it in the sense that it's all just about Donald Trump, right? And we need to do something about Donald Trump. Is either of those two strategies going to be successful? And how do you navigate this world where you want to have depth, but you also need to be kind of clear about what your message is? So I think that this is not only in terms of debating. issues right in terms of the number of candidates or anything like that but it's going to be about the issues per se but also how those issues should be communicated right Democrats have had 11,000 billion problems in terms of communicating with the average voter with the normal voter right we we Democrats talk about, you know, weird words or words they're like, what does that mean? It's like it's, it comes off as being very progressive coded, right? Where it's very kind of one-sided and it appeals to kind of, you know, coastal elites. But you kind of miss people who aren't in those spheres, right? And so, yeah, that's the problem the Democrats have talked about where they're not landing these messages clearly and they're not picking issues that are really relevant. That's changing though, I think. Exactly.

got that point. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you have seen in these previous elections where Democrats have flipped a Republican seat in the sense that candidates are talking about issues, right, and how issues are being communicated with the policy emphasis, not necessarily about these issues regarding moral issues or these or that, et cetera, et cetera, but just highlighting how differences in terms of policy implementation are going to affect people's lives in a very clear manner, right? And I think that... especially in the midterm elections, they have a chance, Democrats, to make a case in terms of just emphasizing the policy, but also in a rhetorical tone that is... comprehended across the board. That's a good point. And I think your kind of concept of this is like a kind of question about coalition is really important. That's the cornerstone of the Democratic parties, like responsibility towards its voters and has historically been the way that it's been successful. But that's really hard to achieve, right? Because, you know, you have the ideological splits. You've got issue concerns that are different. You also have, I think... a kind of uncertainty about how much to emphasize Donald Trump, right, and the kind of challenge of democracy. So there are a lot of different things that are kind of pulling apart the Democratic coalition. But let's talk about the kind of theory of victory, right? What is it that any candidate has to do to be able to accomplish a win in 2028? Like we said, I think that the 26 midterms will give us a hint about what's to come. But honestly, midterms are tough to judge because, like, they're so reactive to what's happening in the White House. I think that 2028 will be more about kind of what they want the party to be going. So I think your point is really good. Yeah, and like how they want the identity be chosen. And sometimes it's a little bit unclear because like, you know, the primary process is so messy and it starts so early like we're talking about it right now. So obviously this is the kind of thing that's, you know, much more kind of stretchy than, than we would assume would be relevant. But in this case, I think the Democrats have to think about what strategies are going to be apparent. So I think number one, it's a coalition question, right? You have to lock in African American voters. You have to reign. like basically get more attention from Latino voters. Places like California, it's easier. Places like Texas, it's a little bit harder, right? They have to have messages that really sell. And they have to re-energize young voters. In Texas especially, we saw a drop in the urban turnout. Democrats cannot have that if they're going to be successful. So coalitions really matter. And how you put that coalition together is, I think, a cornerstone of the success. It's a question two of kind of messaging, right? What's the message that's going to sell? Affordability is going to be the watchword for 2026. Is it still going to be what people are concerned about in 2028? I mean, we see such a fast cycle that it could be a million things. Right. That's still something people are going to be concerned about, right? You're never going to go wrong talking about people's pocketbook. So is that the thing you think that's going to motivate voters in 2028? Well, not only these issue about coalition building beyond debates, right, but you have to have first the base in such a place.

that you feel comfortable so you can start building those collisions. The messaging is, super, super, super, super, super, super important. And also the candidate image that candidates are going to be portrayed, right? Who's going to be the right candidate? It's not going to be the right candidate for Texas may not be the right candidate for the nation, right? That's the concern. Is it the coalition so broad that, like, appealing to different core groups is going to be a challenge for any one candidate. Exactly. But here, I think the interesting part is going to be. For me, the common denominator is going to be, as you say, talking about pocket book issues, right? If you are any part of the coalition or whatever, any part of the spectrum in which you are, issues about pocketbook are going to be resonating every time. The question is how you translate that, right? I mean, we're seeing still right now the Trump administration blaming the Biden administration for... Yeah, I don't know. Everything. For everything. Iran, inflation. Exactly, right. White House doors don't work properly. Yeah, they're creaky. They couldn't do WD, what is? WD40. Yeah. WD40, whatever. They didn't do that. We're in an economic pinch. We can't afford to, like, go to Home Depot. So, or lows, to be fair. Or A's. Very, very diplomatic. But the issue here is that you cannot move forward blaming the pastmanship. because people are not stupid. No, and honestly, like, the Biden administration is sort of a distant past now. And by the time 2020, it rolls around, people don't remember any of that, right? Oh, yeah. Like, if it would be different if Joe Biden was like front and center on all these policy questions, but he's not. You rarely see him, right? Maybe once a month you see something about Joe Biden. So blaming what happened is not going to work. No. Except among your kind of core right components. Yeah, but you don't have to convince your core right component. I mean, whatever. Yeah. It's irrelevant. You cannot do that. And I think that, Thinking about this coalition building is when we talk about the Republican side, we're going to see that they have an inverse problem, right? Yeah, because midterms tend to be mobilization elections, whereas presidential elections tend to be more about persuasion. So they have to have a persuasive method. It depends a bit on what the public's mood is. So, for one, the public's mood is bad. They're, you know, see the country on the wrong track. That's a big problem. In fact, we're seeing that in Texas, too, which is surprising. Like the numbers are going in the wrong direction for Republicans. That could be a problem for Republicans in the mid-time. Oh, yeah. But, you know, who knows what will happen statewide. It's a tough sell to get Texas to switch to the Democrats in the presidential. But, you know, anything's possible. But in any case, the mood is going in the wrong direction. So it's a question of public mood.

Number two, it's a question of where Trump's approval is. Right now, it's really bad. Does a rebound? I don't know. You haven't seen options there or any moments where it's really gone higher than we've seen a kind of, you know, Republican versus Democrat, partisan kind of. blustering, right? That's been kind of where things have generally been. So, Republicans love, Democrats, hate, and everybody else is sort of mixed or usually disliking. So that's where kind of most of that persuasion is. Yeah. I mean, the cases when you see Republicans and Democrats in these recent elections run and Republicans putting or siding with Trump 1,000 percent, they have lost every single election. Yeah, that's good point. Yeah. And, you know, Trump's endorsement record. It's not so good. Even when he kind of holds out to pick winners, it's not always as successful as the Republicans would like. So him being a lame duck will definitely be important too. And of course, you know, what the Democrats do is connected to what the Republicans do, which we'll talk about in the future episode. But definitely this is something in a moment where Democrats have to like where they are. Oh, yeah. They've got, you know, Republicans sort of running scared and they've got messaging opportunities, right? Affordability, democracy. Yes. I can talk more about like Iran and conflicts there. Sure. Who's going to be the spokesperson? That's the question, yeah. No one knows. Let's walk down the field here. There are a lot of people who are running. We've seen, you know, everybody from, you know, kind of the most visible Democrat to some members, people who are maybe out of power for a little bit, who decided they want to run lots of options. Let's talk at the very top. I think the kind of top two contenders at this point are Kamala Harris if she wants it and Gavin Newsom of California if he wants it. So they're both. basically hinting at it, I'm assuming probably they'll follow through on those things. But at least in the meantime, they're acting like it. Correct. That's something that, you know, for everybody else is kind of what they're watching, right? How are they doing? Where are they going? What's their messaging? What's the traction they're getting? Those are the top two, I think, tiers. Top two in the first tier, right? What do you think about that? Absolutely. I mean, I think that's right on top. Gavin Newsom, as we know, has been traveling all over the place. He has come to Texas. He's very good at trolling President Trump. Yeah. And getting into that social media game. I think he has, you know, the persona, so on and so forth. Who knows if he will or not doing it? Kamala Harris, of course. What is the first vice president of the United States? it's women, women of color, super smart, I guess. You know, she got into last presidential election at quarter to 12, not enough time. Right. And he was like, well, it starts at 12 and you're here quarter to 12. So, carry up. So, I mean, we don't know, right? The test case was not something that we could say, yeah, you messed up. No. I mean, there were issues, as we have said in terms of the messaging, et cetera, et cetera. But, okay, fine.

to 12, will she go for the full thing we have to wait and see? She's burned bridges, though, right? Oh, yeah. She's basically taken on Joe Biden. She's taken on, you know, Josh Shapiro to send Greek pew Pete Buttigieg. So there's some bridges that have been burned. Is that going to be a problem for her? Well, I mean, potentially, but eventually... If she wins, everybody has to fall down into the fall, and that's it. Winning as a way of kind of smoothing over these differences, right? Yeah. And I think Democrats surely hope for that's true because, yeah, we've talked all about how this is a really tight coalition, but it can be easily frayed by issues. And that's something that Democrats have to think about. Obviously, one grand unifier is Donald Trump. So I think you're right that Harris, having run against Trump, is one kind of feather in her cap. Gavin Newsom being the number one Trump troll is a sort of feather. in his cap. But again, I don't think that running against Trump would be the winning strategy to the country. Don't even talk about Donald Trump. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ignore him. Like, I mean, if you ignored him, then you may have a chance and focus on the issues, but... Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a consultant in Arlington, Virginia. You should be because they get paid big money. Oh, really? Yeah, I think you're certainly smart enough. You certainly see the world, I think, as Democrats do, which is that they need to be able to find a path forward. And it's, as we've been saying, kind of a message issue. It's a coalition issue. Correct. And really, it's about kind of how you want to position yourself within the party. So for Harris, it's about... the coalition which she's got and stability which she can bring given that she was sort of the cornerstone this kind of correct the kind of marquee player in 2024 for Gavin Newsom he's been seen as the aggressive trump kind of fighter That could be a problem for him, though, right? Like you say, running against Donald Trump isn't a recipe that's been a successful kind of outcome. Hillary Clinton failed at it. You know, Carl Harris failed at it. So I think that's a kind of potential liability that has to be sort of sidestepped. And I actually think that the sort of next tier of candidates is better at compartmentalizing Donald Trump. So a Pete Buttigieg, right? Yeah. Transportation Secretary. Great communicator. Thinks about big picture policy issues. You got Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania. who is a swing state governor and has able to win in a place that's purple. And that's kind of where a man could likely is. Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan is somebody who is. frankly, Ben, in the White House, there's this famous moment where she kind of covers her face when the cameras try to capture her in the Oval Office with the hope that, you know, maybe she's not so connected to Trump in various ways. But I think they're taking a kind of more like downshift approach towards Donald Trump and talking more about things that are effective for voters. And they've all been successful in different ways that either communicating or at actually accomplishing policies that voters really care about. Correct. Yeah. And, you know, these.

the tier of candidates shows a I would say, down-to-earth connection, perhaps, with voters. Or, for example, in the case of everyone that you mentioned, they can talk to both sides, right? They can talk to MSNBC, but they can also go and talk to Fox News, right? So they're able to reach a broader audience and make a case whether voters decide that is the bright case or not. It's whatever. But I don't think that, for example, any of the other... candidates would go and have a conversation with any... you know, of these outlets and not get angry. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. You get too worked up and then that sort of, you know, bites you. And that's part of what the Invisible Primers is about is like kind of workshopping these ideas, right? There's a kind of lane for dark horses here too. Again, we're so far as hard to know who's really going to be kind of, you know, in this race and what their position will be. But people like J.E. J.B. Pritzker from Illinois, right? Who's the governor who's got this great Chicago accent seen as a, you know, populist. He's self-funded. He's rich. The J.B. Pritzker family is wealthy. So that's a possible opportunity for him to break through. Andy Beshear, who is another red state, Democratic, you know, progressive fighter from Kentucky, shown he can win in a red state, which, you know, has got some traction. I think, again, Democrats are concerned about the issues and about where they are in that coalition, but they also want to win. And so their question is, like, which candidate can best get us to that next level, even not knowing kind of who the Republican nominee is going to be? You also got Mark Kelly from Arizona who got a nice boost from the Trump administration when they tried to kind of tackle him when it came to issues where they had told members of the military not to follow illegal orders. So he's a kind of national security moderate. And if this race becomes partially about the conflict in Iran as things continue to spiral, maybe that's something that Democrats look for. Maybe not as the nominee himself, but maybe as like a vice presidential nominee. Because again, this is not just about picking who's going to run. It's also about picking what the Democratic Party will be, who they will be. Absolutely. My darkest of dark horses is Rahm Emanuel, Rombo from Chicago, Illinois. He is a hard charging fighter. He was a member of Congress, mayor of Chicago, chief of staff to Obama. His messaging is as clear as it can be way back to the Clinton days when he was working fundraising. He is like, you know, if you crossed, you know, the kind of godfather with, you know, with. You know, Bill Clinton, this is sort of his level of politics. So there are a lot of people out there who I think are, you know, making moves. And, you know, the.

prospect of how they'll do will be largely dictated by what happens in the midterms. No, absolutely. And that is going to be a very important question in terms of, as we said, the donors, what's a party move, what's the electorate? Because also the Democratic base is completely 1,000% in many cases completely unsatisfied with what Democrats have been doing, right? Especially with all... The numbers, the party's really low, like the trust voters have in the party. Yeah, like really low. Yeah, especially when you have with... established leadership, right? Chuck Schumer, still running the Senate with a flip phone. So those things are correlated, right? Absolutely, right? Maybe get a smartphone. Well, I mean, it's not that it's a bad issue or anything like that or making fun of flop-ish, but it just illustrates, you know, the base of the Democratic Party is not flip phones. Yeah, totally. It's a completely different aspect. It's a completely different needs, wants and preferences. that are not being translated and incorporated into the Democratic Party policy. Yeah, totally. I mean, Democrats have got to rebuild that Obama coalition that was successful and durable for those eight years. And if they can do that, then they can find some success. But it's really issue driven. And to be, that means affordability. Obviously, I don't think you're going to see a big change in terms of that. So that's going to be a big issue. But exploiting this weird calendar, breaking through the noise that Donald Trump provides every day is going to be a real challenge for Democrats. Well, it's going to be a big challenge. but obviously you're still filling it in your pocket. But we're going to talk about these and many other issues, especially now we're going to do these analyses for the Republican Party in a future show. But I'm Canonimo Cortina. And I'm Braddonoron.