The next stop on the 2028 campaign trail: New Jersey and Virginia.
Ambitious Democrats are barnstorming the Garden State and Old Dominion to support their party’s gubernatorial nominees — Rep. Mikie Sherrill and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, respectively — as they get an early start to boosting their name ID and road testing their messaging ahead of what’s expected to be a jam-packed presidential primary.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied with Spanberger in Charlottesville on Tuesday and is appearing at a fundraiser to support Sherrill next week. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer stumped with Sherrill last weekend; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is on deck for this one, and is hitting Virginia shortly after. And that’s just the current stretch.
In addition to self-promotion, it’s an exercise in relationship-building for the party’s would-be leaders. Sherrill and Spanberger are both favored to win their races, though New Jersey is expected to be a closer contest — creating relatively low-risk opportunities for enterprising Democrats to get their reps in on the trail and potentially walk away saying they contributed to a victory.
There’s also a clear benefit for the gubernatorial hopefuls, who are eager to use big names to draw attention to their off-year elections. And certain surrogates can be particularly helpful among specific demographics — like Moore, the only incumbent Black governor in the country, stumping in Newark to help Sherrill turn out Black voters.
“There’s a lot of up-and-coming talent, and I think part of what the candidates for governor want to show is that they’ve got support from people all over who are part of the exciting rebirth and reenvisioning of the Democratic Party,” said Jared Leopold, a strategist who previously worked for the Democratic Governors Association. “That’s why you’re seeing a Wes Moore or a Josh Shapiro out there — people who folks are thinking about as either being the top of the ticket or certainly playing a leadership role in the party over the next decade or so.”
But the flow of surrogates also puts a glaring spotlight on continuing pain points for the Democratic Party.
As Democrats test drive their next class of stars, they’re still struggling to find a current leader who can counter President Donald Trump’s singular influence over the GOP.
And as the party’s biggest names promote two relatively moderate Democrats, many of them are avoiding the party’s nominee for mayor of New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. Their absences lay bare Democrats’ enduring divisions over the types of candidates and policies that can win elections, even with Mamdani poised to walk into the mayor’s office.
A who’s who of Dems
A slew of big-name Democrats have already hit these states ahead of November’s election.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear backed Spanberger’s bid at a canvass kickoff earlier this month, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also recently stumped in Virginia. Sen. Cory Booker has boosted his fellow New Jerseyan Sherrill on the trail. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, California Rep. Ro Khanna and former ambassador and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel have appeared in both states.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego also said he is planning to campaign for Sherrill and Spanberger in the closing stretch of the race. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in the midst of a hotly contested ballot campaign over redistricting, plans to lend a virtual hand to both candidates in the run-up to Election Day.
“I know some people might ask, ‘So why is the governor of Maryland, why do they care about who the governor of Jersey is?’” Moore said at a roundtable in Newark over the weekend with Sherrill. “Because leadership matters, and New Jersey, you are about to do something really powerful for your future and for the future of this country when you elect Mikie Sherrill and Dr. [Dale] Caldwell as your next governor and lieutenant governor.”
It’s common practice to trot out high-profile surrogates in the final days of a competitive campaign. Trump is expected to hold a tele-town hall for New Jersey’s GOP nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, and has expressed support for Virginia’s, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — though he has been less involved in that race. Ciattarelli and Earle-Sears have gotten boosts from other GOP gubernatorial hopefuls, including Ohio’s Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds.
But Democrats are particularly focused on New Jersey and Virginia as they seek to rebound from the party’s brutal losses last year, prompting the growing parade. Buttigieg cast the Virginia contest as one of the “first big tests of our political life as a country after 2024” as he introduced Spanberger at the rally Tuesday.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently attended a fundraiser for Sherrill, and she and former President Bill Clinton partook in one for Spanberger. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin has also campaigned in New Jersey and Virginia, and a number of House members are coming to support their colleagues in these races.
Democrats see an opening
The high-profile beauty pageant also underscores the party’s ongoing debacle: Democrats still lack a singular leader.
Few Democrats are eager to welcome former Vice President Kamala Harris back to the campaign trail as she reemerges to promote her 2024 campaign memoir, where she criticized some of the Democrats currently helping Sherrill and Spanberger. Nor have the candidates embraced former President Joe Biden, who continues to be criticized by members of his own party. The 82-year-old has stayed largely out of public view as he underwent treatments for an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Compare that to 2017: As he laid the groundwork for a presidential bid in 2020, Biden campaigned with the Democratic gubernatorial nominees in both states.
Asked at a press conference after her event with Moore whether she would welcome Harris or Biden, Sherrill replied, “We generally bring people into the community where the community has been asking for this surrogate.”
She drew an implicit contrast between the two former presidential candidates and the Maryland governor: “Gov. Moore is a very popular surrogate who has been requested from multiple people, so we called up to see if he could come on the ground. And that’s generally how we invite people in.” People also asked for Whitmer, Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and President Barack Obama, she said.
Obama has been a consistent presence for gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia in recent cycles. And this year, rather than welcoming their most recent standard bearers, Democrats are once again looking back to the figurehead who last led the party almost a decade ago. Obama cut ads for both Spanberger and Sherrill, and is set to hold rallies for them next week.
“Obama is the closer, and Obama is by far the most popular Democrat in the country. He’s beloved by both the base and swing voters,” said Lanae Erickson, vice president at the centrist-leaning Democratic think tank Third Way. “But is it concerning that we have to go back a decade to find our closer? Yes.”
Shia Kapos and Elena Schneider contributed to this report.
