BEVERLY HILLS, California — Still reeling from the party’s election losses last month, the nation’s Democratic governors descended on a luxury Beverly Hills hotel on Friday and Saturday for a series of closed-door meetings with donors, interest groups and organizations. of defense. Officially, the event was a moment to chart a path forward under the Trump administration.
Unofficially, it also served as a preview of the upcoming Democratic primaries.
“You are witnessing the start of the 2028 presidential primary, live and in person,” said an adviser to major Democratic Party donors, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. He added: “This is the audition for the next president in a room full of donors, operatives, reporters, etc.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, emphasized that the meeting focused on the short term — keeping New Jersey and flipping Virginia in 2025 — and on the “huge contingent of gubernatorial races in 2026.” ”.
“Believe me, right now we’re not thinking beyond the 26th,” he said.
But it was hard to ignore the weekend guest list packed with potential 2028 contenders, including governors. Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Tim Walz of Minnesota, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Roy Cooper of North Carolina. And for two days here, in this state that has long served as a bastion of Democratic politics, the Beverly Hilton was packed with donors, strategists and lobbyists eager to score meetings with rising stars.
Asked about the 2028 moves, Cooper told POLITICO, “I’ll just say there are a lot of great governors across this country who are going to be great leaders in the future.”
Democratic governors are preparing to walk a fine line between taking on President-elect Donald Trump’s Republican trifecta in Washington and collaborating with the incoming administration.
Immediately after the election, some Democratic governors launched plans to “protect Trump” from their states, and in a note Published this week, Meghan Meehan-Draper, executive director of the DGA, wrote that Democratic governors would be the “last line of defense” against the incoming Republican trifecta in the federal government.
Democratic state governors have been explicit in their intention to try to block some Trump policies, efforts that will also likely raise their own profiles. Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis lead an organization to “support the growing threats of autocracy and strengthen the institutions of democracy our country and our states depend on,” and while the privately funded group is nonpartisan, The implications are clear.
“You are coming for my people, you are coming through me,” Pritzker told reporters last month in a warning to the incoming administration.
In deep blue New York, Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James created an initiative to “address any political and regulatory threats that may arise from a Trump administration.” In California, Newsom called a special session of the legislature to lay the legal groundwork for the state to lead its second resistance to Trump.
And Washington Governor Jay Inslee said: “We have already made considerable efforts at the last rodeo, which have met with considerable success, to prevent him from financially abusing our state and taking away our resources. [and] pointing us out.”
“You can’t say we’re ‘Trump-proof’ because he still has some levers to pull, but we’ve already done so considerably,” Inslee added.
But with the electoral defeat still stinging, the event implicitly raised the question of who might have the right formula for next time. Inslee said governors are “focused on the gubernatorial election cycle right now.” Still, he acknowledged that “the day after each election is the beginning” of the next.
While the governors’ positioning in 2017 was more stridently opposed to Trump, this time they appear to be hedging their bets. Newsom has promised that he would offer “an open hand, not a closed fist” to the incoming administration, and other governors have shown a willingness to work with Trump on some issues.
Whitmer, who said her state “played a role in supporting President Trump,” also said she hoped to find ways to work with the president-elect. He emphasized that “I will not abandon my values, but I will work hard to find common ground everywhere I can.”
“I have two more years and my goal is to do everything I can for the state,” Whitmer added.
Cooper, who will be replaced as North Carolina governor in January by Democrat Josh Stein, said it would be “really important” for his successor to work with the federal government to help the state recover from Hurricane Helene.
And many acknowledged that the demands of their jobs required them to pick up the phone when the Trump administration called. “We will continue to do what we do, which is work with whoever we need to to get what we need for our states,” Kelly said.
