The Democrats began the year in a state of shock after President Trump won back the presidency last November. The party has spent much of the past year trying to regain its footing.
There are signs of progress, however.
Trump’s approval ratings, never stellar, have sagged to some of their lowest points recently. Voters give the president particularly poor marks on one of the most important issues: inflation and the cost of living.
Tensions around the Jeffrey Epstein files have also contributed to widening fissures within Trump’s MAGA coalition.
Democratic spirits were lifted by a series of election wins earlier this month: Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election, while Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) also won gubernatorial contests in their respective states.
The outlook is also brightening for the midterms. The latest polling averages from The Hill’s data partner Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) give Democrats a 5-point edge.
Prominent Democrats are already jockeying for position as speculation about the 2028 presidential election ramps up.
As the political world takes a breather for Thanksgiving, here are the Democrats who have shone and who have lost some luster this year.
On the rise
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has had the best year of any front-line contender — in large part because he has emerged as one of the spikiest counterpoints to Trump.
The outcome wasn’t always guaranteed.
Part of Newsom’s initial response to Trump’s 2024 election victory was to launch a podcast on which he spoke to several Trump-supporting populists, including Steve Bannon and the late Charlie Kirk.
The implicit message — that Democrats need to listen more carefully to the concerns of their foes — found a lukewarm reception, at best, among grassroots liberals who were appalled by Trump’s return to power.
Newsom soon got into gear, however. In particular, a near-constant stream of social media posts that mocked Trump, including by aping his idiosyncratic style, delighted liberals.
So too — more substantively — did Newsom’s spearheading of a ballot initiative which would redraw congressional maps to likely give Democrats five more House seats in the Golden State.
Newsom presented the measure as necessary to counter GOP efforts in other states, most notably Texas. The measure he supported, Proposition 50, won easy passage in November.
This nimbleness has helped Newsom rise to early front-runner status among possible 2028 contenders.
But nipping at his heels is a rival from a quite different ideological background: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
AOC, as the New Yorker is almost universally known, has drawn huge crowds at a series of rallies throughout the year with fellow progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
But perhaps the biggest boost to Ocasio-Cortez came through Mamdani’s victory in New York.
AOC endorsed the state Assembly member in June, later than some of his left-wing supporters wanted but still well before he won the Democratic primary.
Mamdani went on to beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) twice — in the primary and again in the general election. In the process, he sparked significant excitement.
Skeptics will point out that the politics of New York City are far more left-leaning than the nation at large. But the Mamdani victory nevertheless helped the progressive case that voters are hungering for a more ambitious approach than the one favored by centrist party leaders and consultants.
The thesis, in turn, makes the idea of a serious Ocasio-Cortez presidential bid even more credible.
There are others, beyond Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez, who could offer 2028 Democratic primary voters an aggressive counterattack against the forces of MAGA.
One is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who didn’t have to seek the limelight this year. Media attention was brought his way by Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago.
Pritzker at one point called for the invoking of the 25th Amendment to boot Trump from office, and also made a profane attack on him during a recent speech to a teachers union.
The jury is out on whether Democratic voters would rally to a billionaire such as Pritzker, but the Illinois governor is a higher-profile national figure now than he was when the year began.
Off the boil
It’s impossible to discount former Vice President Kamala Harris from the 2028 running.
But she would clearly face a lot of stiff competition if she chose to seek the nomination again. The last time she entered a crowded field, in 2020, the outcome was poor — she ended up withdrawing even before the Iowa caucuses.
Harris kept a low profile for a while after her loss last November, but that changed with the publication of her campaign memoir “107 Days.” The book’s title is a reference to the length of time she had to try to beat Trump.
The book sold well — its publisher, Simon & Schuster, reported first week sales across all formats of 350,000 copies.
But the book and the accompanying tour inevitably renewed attention on a period that many Democrats are eager to forget. It encompassed former President Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June 2024, the related question of who knew what about his apparent cognitive decline, and Harris’s own defeat last November.
Along the way, Harris also showed her tendency to try to appeal to all sides and end up satisfying none. That habit manifested itself on issues ranging from Biden’s record generally to the administration’s positions on Israel and the Palestinians.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is another figure who has faced criticism from skeptics who claim his undoubted communication skills mask a lack of clarity over what he believes.
Buttigieg, like Harris, could come back into serious contention, and he outperformed expectations in the 2020 primary that made him a national figure.
But his lack of elected office and his modulated tone have caused his profile to slip a bit this year amid so many other high-wattage contenders.
An even more curious case is that of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
She was instantly seen as a top-tier 2028 campaign in the aftermath of Harris’s defeat, for obvious reasons. She can mix it up with Trump when she wants, and she also has an authenticity many Democrats find appealing. Her status as the two-term governor of an upper Midwest battleground state also recommended her.
Whitmer has been less confrontational with Trump this year, stressing that her main objective is to meet the needs of Michigan voters.
However, this approach inadvertently led to Whitmer’s worst moment of the year — the photograph of her in the Oval Office, covering her face with a binder, as Trump signed controversial executive orders in April.
Whitmer was at the White House for other reasons, and sources close to her said she had not expected to be brought into the Oval. Still, the image lingers on.
A few days ago, Axios reported Whitmer had “privately expressed ambivalence” about whether to run for president.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
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