After one of the biggest midterm landslides in recent U.S. history, the Democratic Party is undergoing a substantial redefinition of what it is.
That process must continue, because while the party had a wildly successful midterm, the Democratic brand remains unpopular.
How will this political project unfold, and who will lead it? I decided to assess and scout the people I believe will play the biggest role in directing the party’s future.
I picked 27 politicians. One group is made up of likely candidates in the 2028 derby. In that, Democrats will have an enviable problem: almost too many candidates to choose from.
Members of a second group are the rising stars of the party, or what I’ll deem the Class of 2026, who had breakthrough victories this year.
All told, there are 26 Democrats — plus a special case, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, who isn’t technically in either group.
Usually, I take a highly quantitative approach to politics. There are statistical methods to quantify ideology on a left-right scale. Indeed, the 2028 candidates will inevitably be organized through progressive and moderate “lanes.” It’s relevant to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chances, for instance, that the left lane isn’t crowded because the two most prominent progressives either can’t run for president (Mr. Mamdani is a naturalized citizen) or won’t because of age (Bernie Sanders is 85).
But progressive versus moderate doesn’t fully capture how the Democrats will seek to differentiate themselves and to update the party’s image. Sometimes when you’re projecting into the future, you need to do something more subjective.
I decided to focus on another dimension: “fighter” versus “uniter.” For this, I looked at how they communicate. The Democratic Party is a broad coalition and offers multiple modes of appealing to voters in different parts of the country, which I believe gives the Democrats an advantage. Republicans in the Trump era are almost entirely stuck in one mode: fight.
What Democrats showed this year is that they can effectively communicate to people in blue, purple and red states with an impressive mix of fighter, uniter and hybrid messages.
To see how the party might cast itself into the future, I watched videos of these 27 Democrats, scoring each candidate from 1 (fighter) to 7 (uniter). Here’s how I see them coalescing into three groups.
Fighters
In the second Trump term, Democrats have called for more fight from their leaders. People like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California have responded. His social media accounts have made posts in ALL CAPS to mimic President Trump’s style. He led Democratic efforts to respond to Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting. He’s a consummate pugilist.
The only other pure fighter is Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. Even in his victory speech, he couldn’t resist taking shots at his opponent Mike Rogers (“I know you got a house in Florida and two yachts”) and Vice President JD Vance (“Wolverine 1, Buckeye 0”).
There are a handful of less overt fighters. Georgia’s Jon Ossoff is in this category, though trending toward the 1 end of the scale more than I expected. His remarks drip with contempt for his opponents; for instance, he repeatedly called his opponent Mike Collins a “bigot.” To my poker player’s eye, this comes across as strategic, serving up catnip to resistance libs in the form of viral video clips.
I sometimes get the sense that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is trying to move more into the hybrid group by, for instance, openly welcoming Trump voters into her coalition or traveling to rural, red communities to talk to residents about data centers. It is evident that women and Black candidates have to be more careful in calibrating how they present to voters because they run more risk of being deemed too aggressive.
Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois also fit here. While Mr. Gallego has worked to moderate some of his progressive positions in purple Arizona, he has an intrinsic pugnacity in public appearances second only to Mr. El-Sayed.
Uniters
For this group, a Democratic icon looms: Barack Obama. His famous line at the 2004 Democratic convention — “We coach Little League in the blue states, and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states” — was classic uniter rhetoric.
The only pure uniter on my list is Senator-elect Adam Hamilton of Kansas. Among Democrats, religiosity seems to be correlated with a cooler temperament rather than fire-and-brimstone. But he ran on themes of kindness and decency — while giving voters no indication that he’s a Democrat in red Kansas.
I included six other candidates here. Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania seemed similar. They can be fiery, but even that comes across as measured. Mr. Shapiro is also likely to run on themes of electability and effective governance, which are usually uniter traits.
Pete Buttigieg is a persuader, not a fighter, as he exhibits in his frequent appearances on Fox News. But at a rally for Scott Colom in Mississippi, he showed more passion than I’ve seen from him before, and he’s also escalated his rhetoric against Mr. Trump and Republicans.
For Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia, even in an advertisement that accused the two leading Republican candidates for governor of kissing Mr. Trump’s behind, she’s smiling, upbeat and optimistic. This read to me like a tactical choice for a Black woman trying to get elected in the Deep South — indeed, no Black woman has ever been a governor in this country before — and it worked.
Even the moderates can show flashes of real anger. Iowa featured two uniters. Rob Sand, its governor-elect, went out of his way to emphasize how he wouldn’t be beholden to partisanship. But, especially in certain appearances, his demeanor wasn’t sunny.
As a poker player, I have my guesses about when this anger is real and when it’s performative. But it serves a strategic purpose for the many Democrats who say they want a fighter.
Iowa’s senator-elect, Josh Turek, can come across as exasperated when disavowing partisanship and sometimes his own party. But filming a political ad showing himself playing basketball with Mr. Obama is a clear unifier signal.
Representative-elect Bobby Pulido of Texas is one of two incoming House members I designated as a rising star because of his 25-point win in a district that voted for Mr. Trump by 18 points in 2024. He’s almost certainly going to be one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. While he has a natural affability (he has had a long career as a Tejano music star), he can code-switch and be slightly more combative in Spanish-language interviews.
Hybrids
The most effective candidates might be the ones who can pull off both “fighter” and “uniter.” A lot of the 2026 rising stars fall into this category. They know how to communicate, and they seem like real people, not wax-figure politicians.
Perhaps the two hardest candidates to rate are James Talarico and Kamala Harris.
Mr. Talarico has talked about “flipping tables,” but that’s a biblical metaphor. In his commercials, he used some highly aggressive rhetoric against his opponent Ken Paxton. Still, the lectern at his victory speech bore a sign reading “Love Thy Neighbor.”
Ms. Harris, unlike most candidates on this list, is not an electoral overperformer. And it may be because she has trouble picking which stylistic lane she fits in. One of her most effective political moments was critiquing Joe Biden in a 2019 Democratic debate for his remarks about working with segregationist senators. But even there, her attack was precisely worded and restrained.
I call another cluster of candidates the “I’ve had enough” group: Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, the Senate candidate Mary Peltola of Alaska and Montana’s 32-year-old representative-elect, Sam Forstag.
For rising stars like Mr. Forstag, a former wildland firefighter, the pitch is often that they were just trying to do their jobs until the outrageousness of the country’s predicament pushed them into politics. For experienced politicians, it’s more about being done with the nice guy act. I was surprised to see the degree of contempt that Mr. Beshear showed for Mr. Vance and that Mr. Kelly, usually one of the more bipartisan members of the Senate, demonstrated for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia is a hybrid, but his fiery moments are more controlled and more context-dependent, such as when speaking at a No Kings rally or to predominantly Black audiences. Again, we’re sensing some themes here: Candidates with religious backgrounds tend to be even-tempered, as do the Black candidates.
But other candidates use humor to bridge the gap between “fighter” and “uniter,” none more effectively than Mississippi’s senator-elect, Scott Colom. His “pick another protein?” ad is one of the most effective pieces of political communication I can remember, not just because it’s legitimately funny but also because it provides a permission structure: picking another senator instead is no big deal.
Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa of Texas is one of the most calibrated communicators on the list, tossing lots of barbs at her opponents but with an underlying amiability. She’s subtly worked to reposition herself from being the former vice chair of the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus to a populist who rejects the culture wars.
Gov.-elect Amy Acton of Ohio is not what you might call a natural politician, nor is she especially partisan. But her calling card is her toughness amid adverse experiences. By the end of the campaign, responding to questions about Vivek Ramaswamy’s much-condemned attack ad in a hoarse, campaign-weathered voice, she reminded me of Linda Hamilton at the end of “Terminator 2.”
Rounding out my list are Representative Ro Khanna of California and South Carolina’s senator-elect, Annie Andrews. My main impression of Mr. Khanna is that he’s never found a television camera he doesn’t like. Ms. Andrews has more breakout potential. She’s a master of tightly edited videos full of tropes that identify her as a pediatrician and a working mom. She was gracious in her victory speech, but she can have very sharp elbows, as in an ad that not very subtly implied that her predecessor Senator Lindsey Graham was gay. Is that fighting dirty? Well, that’s a fighter attribute, and she’s closer to the “fighter” end of the spectrum than any other red-state winner.
Mr. Mamdani is to Mr. Newsom’s left on almost every issue. But he’s from a newer political species, with more evolved communication skills. Sure, he’ll fight the oligarchy, but he’s also been chummy with the president during their meetings. A hybrid can show you different gears.
What stands out
The party has benefited enormously from long-overdue generational turnover in its candidates. Voters ages 18 to 29 shifted by 34 points toward Democrats as compared with 2024. The party is blessed with sharp communicators who understand that politics is no longer about stump speeches and “Meet the Press” appearances. Several don’t look like typical politicians, but a conspicuous number of the rising stars have Instagram-worthy good looks.
That communication is highly tactical. The increasingly fragmented media landscape might make it harder to drive a single message, but the hybrids understand that multiple messages are better. To win in a state like Mississippi, for instance, Mr. Colom simultaneously needed to attract donor money from a more progressive national audience, motivate extraordinary levels of Black turnout and persuade moderate whites that voting for him would be as natural as flipping a burger.
Looking ahead, one problem I see for Democrats is probably a good one to have. Some members of the Class of 2026 are such skilled communicators that one wonders whether they’ll overshadow the actual 2028 candidates.
Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin. He is a part-time adviser for the prediction market Polymarket.
Headshot photographs by Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters and The New York Times.
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