Will Elizabeth Warren be a 2028 Democratic power broker?

Will Elizabeth Warren be a 2028 Democratic power broker?

The Massachusetts senator ran for office in 2020 as one of the faces of the party’s progressive wing, her fan base clashing with the larger cohort of Bernie Sanders supporters online over which candidate should champion causes like Medicare-for-All, a $15 an hour federal minimum wage standard, and efforts to rein in dark money in politics.

Now, after the progressive wing’s defeat that cycle and the following four-year degradation of the center-left’s brand under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, people like Warren and Sanders both are being looked at to learn from Biden’s mistakes and pass the torch (and the mantle of the progressive left’s leadership) to younger figures in the party.

And it’s not just staunchly left-leaning Democrats seeking them out, according to Axios, which reports that Warren has met privately with not only California Gov. Gavin Newsom but also Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a favorite of the party’s moderate wing but one untainted with close association to the impenetrable D.C. bubble that shielded Biden’s team from reality.

Warren, too, is seeking out alumni of the Obama and Biden administrations as she and others begin plotting what will certainly be the first task for any Democratic president: Rebuilding the parts of the federal government torn down, in some cases literally, by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE initiatives and other efforts by the 47th president to centralize all policymaking and command within the White House itself.

According to Warren, she spoke with Beshear during their meeting about a key progressive priority that the left’s favored champion Zohran Mamdani is currently working to build out and expand in New York City: Universal pre-K, which the senator said she talked to Beshear about making a federal policy.

Federally subsidized childcare would relieve a major financial burden on younger families in particular, and is eyed by many on the left as a way to alleviate what many younger Americans see as truly insurmountable pressures working against families that want to have children at a young age.

"He talked about the difference it would make for families in Kentucky," she told Axios. "I leaned back and thought: 'This is someone who gets it. He's not checking the box.'"

Progressives are feeling a surge of confidence and support as frustrated voters across the ideological spectrum as well as many less ideologically committed voters reassess how the Biden administration and the surrounding Democratic Party apparatus handled the last Democratic presidency. Key parts of Biden’s agenda were thwarted by the party’s own senators in Congress, and voters were reassured that concerns about Biden’s age were unwarranted before it became too late to hold a formal primary, robbing voters of the feeling of having selected their candidates.

Economically, the Biden presidency was also punctuated by another dynamic that especially annoyed progressives. The president’s boosters loudly insisted that the American economy remained strong under their watch, even as figures like homelessness, rates of gig work and multiple employment rose and the pains of Covid-era price hikes were compounded by a war in Ukraine that drove up food and energy prices.

The president’s brand was also heavily damaged by the war in Gaza and his strong support for Benjamin Netanyahu, an issue which particularly divided older and younger Democrats.

Party members like Beshear and Sen. Chris Murphy are seen as more in touch with younger voters on issues of war, U.S. support for Israel and the ever-present global footprint of the U.S. military, even if they don’t personally hail from the progressive wing of the party. Even Vice President Kamala Harris wrote after the election in her memoir 107 Days that she privately urged Biden to show more compassion for Palestinian lives and noncombatants, including children, killed in Israeli strikes during the presidential campaign.

Warren spoke at the Center For American Progress’s convention last week in Washington D.C., and is actively endorsing in primary races playing out around the country — as is Sanders.

A major test of her influence is set to play out in August as the Michigan Democratic primary for U.S. Senate concludes and a three-way battle between the Warren-endorsed Mallory McMorrow, the Sanders-endorsed Abdul El-Sayed, and the party elite’s favorite, Haley Stevens, comes to an end. Polls show the race close, but a recent spat between McMorrow and El-Sayed over the latter’s endorsement from Twitch streamer Hasan Piker saw McMorrow’s standing in some surveys drop.