< MUSIC > Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We are 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 midterms.

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 make a step back and look at what's to come, in particular with the eye towards understanding how the Democrats in particular Right.

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 thought to me that, like, 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, it'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 Talarico and in the case of Jasmine Crockett.

Right.

But here, I think that this invisible party is not only in terms of what you just mentioned, but also in terms of determining, how these candidates are going to be treated as serious candidates.

Right, if they're going to be real contenders or not, as you say, Kamala Harris, I don't think it's a it's a good start for the Democratic Party to, to 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 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 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.

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 the 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, you know, 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 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 independents are wanting.

South Carolina is obviously a major hub because it is really the cornerstone of the African-American vote 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.

Right.

And so that's are trying to figure out, you know, where to spend your 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 that 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 of these factors in this kind of moment, even before we've gotten any single vote.

Right.

Because the end product of these movement and traveling here and getting money and some features, etc., etc., it tells signals about what is the party move, right?

On the one hand, we're 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?

Yeah.

So all those things, when you put all those things together are going to control the media cycle, donor behavior.

And obviously the perceptions that the public 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 effect that we see in the Talarico 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 trying to rebuild that relationship.

But you can have the opposite effect.

And and in Texas especially, is how you can assemble that collision 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 significant gerrymander the whole country.

That's backfired because you're seeing shifts back 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.

That's it.

Like the rapidity of the cycle is and we're already talking about 2028, right.

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 a bandwidth for that in the Democratic Party, or are they overthinking it?

Or the under thinking it, 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 under thinking 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 strategy is 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, we... democrats talk about, you know, weird words or words like what?

What does that mean?

It's like 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.

I finally got that point.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

And you have seen these previous elections where Democrats have played at Republican seats in the sense that candidates are talking about issues.

Right, and how issues are being communicated with a policy emphasis, not necessarily about these issues regarding moral issues or these or that, etc., etc., 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 you're kind of concept of this as like a kind of question about coalition is really important.

That's the cornerstone of the Democratic Party, right.

Like responsibility towards its voters.

And is historically been the way that it's been successful.

But that's really hard to achieve, right.

Because, you know, you have that ideological splits.

You've got issue concerns that are different.

You also have, I think, 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 2026 midterms will give us a hint about what's to come.

But honestly, midterms are tough to judge because 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 forward.

Correct.

So I think your point Their identity.

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, a much more kind of stretch even 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.

You have to 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 it's going to sell.

Affordability is going to be the watchword for 2026 is it's 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, but that's still something people are going to be concerned about, right?

You're never going to go wrong talking about people's pocketbooks.

So is that the thing you think that's going to motivate voters in 2028?

Well, not only not only these issues about building beyond the base, right.

But you have to have first the base in such a place that you feel comfortable so you can start building those coalitions.

The messaging is super, super, super, super, super important.

And also the the candidate image that candidates are going to be portrayed.

Right.

Who's going to be the right candidate is not going to be the right candidate for Texas may not be the right candidate for the for the nation.

That's the concern.

A coalition so broad.

Exactly.

Like appealing to different core groups, is going to be a challenge for any one candidate.

Exactly.

But 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 coalitions or whatever, any part of the spectrum 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.

I don't know.

Yeah, everything.

For Everything.

Iran, inflation.

Exactly, right?

White House doors don't work properly.

Yeah.

They put them through WD the what.

Is WD 40.

Yeah.

WD40 whatever they did in.

We're in an economic pinch.

We can't afford to like go to Home Depot right.

So or Lowes to be fair or Ace Hardware.

Very very very diplomatic.

But the issue here is that you cannot move forward blaming the past because people are not stupid.

No.

And honestly, like the Biden administration is sort of a distant past now.

And by the time 2028 rolls around, people won't remember or any of that.

Right?

Oh yeah.

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 even except among your kind of core right components.

Yeah, but 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, not about the Republican side, we're going to see that they have the inverse problem, right?

So true.

Yeah.

Because midterms tend to be mobilization elections, whereas presidential elections tend to be more about persuasion.

So they have a persuasive method.

And it depends a bit on what the public's mood is.

So for one the public's mood is bad there.

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 middle.

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, it'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 is 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.. I mean, the case is when you see Republicans and Democrats in these recent elections run and Republicans put in or siding with Trump 1,000%, they have lost every single election.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah.

And, you know, Trump's endorsement record is not so good.

Yeah.

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 to.

And of course, you know, what the Democrats do is to connect 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, the Republicans sort of running scared, and they've gotten messaging opportunities right, affordability.

Oh yes.

Democracy.

They talk more about like, Iran and conflicts there.

Sure.

But who's going to be the the spokesperson?

That's the question.

Yeah.

No one knows.

Let's walk down the field.

Right.

There are a lot of people who are running.

We've seen, you know, everybody from 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 start 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, right?

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 attraction they're getting?

Those are the top two I think tiers top two in the first tier right 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.

Uh first vice president of the United States?

Woman, woman of color.

Super smart.

I guess, you know, she got into last presidential election at quarter to 12.

Not enough time, right?

And it's like, well, it starts at 12 and you're here at quarter to 12.

The election is 15 minutes from now.

Hurry up.

So I mean, we don't know the the test case was not something that we could say.

Yeah, you messed it up.

No, I mean there were issues, as we have said in terms of the messaging etc., etc., but okay, fine.

Quarter 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 taking on, you know, Josh Shapiro.

To some degree Pete Buttigieg.

So there are 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 into the fold.

And that's it.

Winning has a way of kind of smoothing over these differences.

Right?

Yeah.

But I think Democrats certainly 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 one, 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 ignore 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 of this kind of the kind of marquee player in 2024.

For Gavin Newsom he's been seen as an 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, Kamala 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've 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 likely is.

Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan is somebody who is frankly been 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 of communicating or at actually accomplishing policies that voters really care about.

Correct.

Yeah.

And, you know, these other tier of candidates shows a I would say down to earth connection perhaps with voters or for example, in the case of, 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 where the voters decide that is the right 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 of these outlets and not get angry.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah, exactly.

You get two worked up and then that sort of, you know, bites you.

And that's part of what the invisible primary is about.

It's kind of workshopping these ideas, right.

There is a kind of lane for dark horses here to 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 JB 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 Pritzker family is wealthy.

So that's a possible opportunity for him to break through.

Andy Beshear, who is another red state Democratic 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.

So their question is like, which candidate can best get us to that next level?

You know, not knowing kind of the Republican nominee is going to be.

You've also got Mark Kelly from Arizona, who got a nice boost from the Trump administration when they tried to kind of, you know, tackle him when it came to issues where they had, you know, told members of the military not follow their legal 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 is 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, the Rahmbo 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 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 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 all of the Democratic is completely 1,000%, in many cases, completely unsatisfied with what Democrats have been doing.

Right, especially.

With the party's really low, like the trust voters have in the party.

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 are correlated.

Right.

Absolutely right.

Well, I mean, it's not it's not that easy it's about issue, anything like or making fun of old age, but it just illustrates the base of the Democratic Party is not flip phones, right.

It's a completely different aspect.

It's a completely different needs once 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 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 feeling it in your pocket.

But we're going to talk about this and many other issues, especially now we're going to do this analysis for the Republican Party in a future show.

But I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

More Party Politics next week.

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