David’s view
Here’s a telling question: Where did the Chris Van Hollen-for-leader talk come from?
It started with the Maryland Democratic senator’s trip to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Ábrego García, wrongly deported there by the Trump administration, while other Democrats worried about the optics. It continued with Van Hollen’s invitation to an Iowa fundraiser, which charged up speculation about a presidential bid, despite his insistence that he wasn’t interested.
Then, after Democrats struck a deal to end the shutdown — a move opposed by Van Hollen, who represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers — progressive activists circulated a memo explaining why he should lead their party in the Senate.
Van Hollen denied interest in that job, too. But when he joined the liberal group Patriotic Millionaires for a rally this week, the activists introduced him as “somebody who should run for president.”
“I do want to play a very big role in terms of the future of the Democratic Party,” Van Hollen said.
That’s a booming industry. In the aftermath of the shutdown and the party’s successful off-year elections, the Democrats who’ve taken the biggest risks have seen the biggest benefits. In the very early 2028 conversation, the one Van Hollen insists he isn’t part of, this has meant a boomlet for California Gov. Gavin Newsom and a surge for Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
Newsom chose to push forward on a gerrymandering referendum that passed by 29 points. Khanna teamed up with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and became the Democratic face of a victory on the Jeffrey Epstein files. Both men ended up routing the Trump White House. It was a victory, said Khanna, over the “Epstein Class,” a term he picked up when he noticed how angry podcasters were getting about what the late sex trafficker and his clients had gotten away with.
“Men of extreme wealth who bought off politicians through contributions while dining with global bankers and believed the rules did not apply to them,” Khanna told Semafor, when asked how he’d define the Epstein Class. “They shafted working-class Americans and did not care about the hard work and values of forgotten Americans who built our nation.”
While Newsom scored a clean victory at the polls, Republicans’ redistricting plays have started faltering: A panel of Texas judges struck down the GOP gerrymander that Newsom initially responded to, and Indiana’s Republican governor fumbled a President Donald Trump-led effort to zap two Democratic House seats there.
Khanna notched an even cleaner win on the Epstein vote, which passed 417-1. Within minutes, Republicans who jumped on the train as it was moving were baselessly arguing that Democrats had previously “refused” to release the files.
Trump and the GOP could still win the gerrymandering wars by getting the Texas ruling reversed or twisting more arms in Indiana. But Republicans lost the California and Epstein fights because their opponents embraced risks. Democrats have moved quickly from wondering how they could win again to fantasizing about where they can win.
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The shutdown was its own risk — but not one that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had a real choice on, after the blowback to his decision to fund the government in March.
Schumer’s camp kept insisting that he didn’t want to reopen without a cleaner victory on health care, but the defection of his centrists underscored that the risk hadn’t paid off. Since the shutdown ended, Democrats who are behaving like potential presidential candidates have been lining up to argue that their party gave in because its Senate leaders were too cautious.
“It does involve a level of fight and sometimes a level of confrontation that can be uncomfortable,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, told voters at a New Hampshire town hall. “We can’t ask anybody out in the private sector to stand up to him … to fight for our democracy, to engage in risk-tolerant behavior, if we aren’t willing to do the same thing ourselves.”
Murphy was joined in New Hampshire, two days later, by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., whose 2020 campaign never found a compelling theme. He now has one, if he decides to pull the trigger again: standing up to Republicans, and to Democrats who aren’t willing to try new things.
“We need to start calling out our own party and telling the truth that our party is not getting it right,” Booker said at his own Stand Up New Hampshire town hall.
As the party’s base demands more brawls and more risks, Democrats in power are trying to catch up. That includes Gov. Wes Moore in Maryland, who has begun to battle his state’s Senate Democratic leader over redistricting in order to grab another Democratic seat. Moore wants it; Bill Ferguson doesn’t.
“The Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. The Democrats have a results problem,” Moore said during an interview at the Texas Tribune’s annual festival last week. “You’ve got to actually deliver results.”
That means taking risks. Why would Kamala Harris, one of the party’s most risk-averse presidential nominees, turn a Nashville book tour stop into a pop-up campaign event for a special election? Because Trump looks weak right now, and because Democrats are rallying behind those who take big swings.
Party leaders in DC, like Schumer, are still limited in how they can fight — which explains why Schumer’s favorable ratings with his own voters are historically low, and why replacing him with the senator who gambled in El Salvador is suddenly an attractive idea for progressives.
Notable
- In Slate, Matthew Cooke and Rick Hasen judged the Republican/Justice Department arguments for overturning California’s gerrymander and doubted that it would be undone.
- In Politico, Jonathan Martin sat down with Newsom to discuss the meaning of his Proposition 50 win. “The governor made his own luck this year. With a little help from Trump.”
- In CNN, Edward Isaac-Dovere embedded with Khanna as the Epstein bill rocketed through the House. “He’d like a little more credit for being ahead of the curve.”