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If the Democratic party wants to win back power in 2028, then look no further than the 2026 election cycle as the most important moment to focus on.
It is not three years from now when working class voters will decide, like they did in November, whether they still believe the Democratic party isn’t fighting for their interests – it’s the next 12 months. And to make it abundantly clear, it is not going to be the same 257 Democrats that are in Congress today that will deliver Democrats their majority. That’s why a robust, active, and exciting Democratic primary process in districts across the country is a necessary prerequisite to Democrats winning in 2026, let alone 2028.
Voters have made their feelings clear, a majority do not see themselves in this party and do not believe in its leaders or many of its representatives. They need a new generation of leaders with fresh faces and bold ideas, unbought by corporate Super Pacs and billionaire donors, to give them a new path and vision to believe in. That requires working class, progressive primary challenges to the overwhelming number of corporate Democratic incumbents who have rightfully been dubbed as do-nothing electeds.
We at Justice Democrats believe people-powered primaries will always be beneficial to the health of our democracy. And it’s clear millions of voters believe that too – the primaries they’re clamoring for are ones led for-and-by working class people, who put together campaigns with solutions as big as our crises and ambitious enough to inspire a disaffected electorate.
People-powered primaries are not corporate-backed. They do not cost tens of millions of dollars to elect a candidate voters believe in – that’s an auction. Voters are also not simply seeking to replace their aging corporate shill representatives with younger corporate shills. More of the same from a younger generation is still more of the same. Voters believe a majority of their elected leaders in Congress are unwilling to fight for them with the urgency and energy that they need and they don’t believe it’s just because they cannot stay awake in committee.
They know it’s because too much of this party is bought and sold by the same corporate interests and billionaires spreading millions of dollars to ensure their leaders don’t fight tooth and nail to deliver universal healthcare, affordable housing, higher taxes on the 1% and lower costs for everyone else.
The party has too often failed to deliver real results because corporate-funded Democrats have backed down to corporate special interests. This lack of courage has made it clear to the American people that Democrats are weak, and lack the courage to fight.
That is why voters want a new generation of leaders, not just to end the scourge of career politicians that has overrun the Democratic party, but to end their billionaire-dictated approach to politics and policy. It’s the moral courage – as evidenced most by the small handful of outspoken progressives in Congress – to stand up for your communities in the face of hundreds of millions of dollars in threats from corporate and rightwing Super Pacs that is the winning path forward for Democrats.
But this cycle, as voters make it clear that they want unbossed and unbought leaders, too many Democratic groups, and even some that call themselves progressive, are encouraging candidates’ silence in the face of lobbies like Aipac and crypto’s multimillion-dollar threats. Silence in the face of genocide, silence in the face of Trump’s crypto corruption, and silence on anything that might upset the rich and powerful.
Lobbies like Aipac and crypto’s strategy is to put fear in the hearts of every candidate and member of Congress. Too often, we hear from candidates and members who claim they are with us on the policy, but can’t speak out on it because Aipac or crypto will spend against them.
Silence is cowardice and cowardice inspires no one. The path to more Democratic victories is not around, behind, and under these lobbies but it’s right through them, taking them head-on and ridding them from our politics once and for all.
The solution to their fear-mongering is not acquiescence, it’s solidarity. If we all hold the line together, they cannot divide and conquer. They cannot defeat us all. That courage and solidarity is what can unite a fractured nation of voters who distrust the entire institution of electoral politics and its ability to transform their lives for the better.
Democrats can win in 2026 and subsequently in 2028 by showing voters that there is a different way to do electoral politics. The leaders of the future of the Democratic party will be defined by those willing to take on the biggest fights. Leaders who are authentically themselves, courageous and morally consistent. Leaders who have the courage to stand up for all people even in the face of massive opposition. People like Summer Lee, who won her primary and general elections in 2022 despite being one of Aipac’s first-ever Super Pac targets and has since introduced legislation to ban all Super Pacs from federal elections.
In 2028, Democrats will no longer be running against Donald Trump, and so they will have to be running for something. Piecemeal, technocratic, corporate-staged solutions are not a vision for the future of this country. They are a Substack post that has been written 1,000 times by the same pundits, donors, advisers and politicians that brought us a Republican trifecta in Washington and an unchanged, uninspiring, and ill-equipped Democratic party to fight them.
Democratic voters are looking to 2026 to see a new generation of working class leaders that understand their struggles and will not be too scared to fight to deliver massive, generational solutions to them. They do not want to simply vote blue no matter who, they want someone and something to vote for. And with a healthy Democratic primary process led by everyday people – and not corporate Super Pacs – willing to challenge their own party’s establishment, they will be able to organize and unite behind a Democratic party that can actually win by winning a better life for the people in this country.
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Alexandra Rojas is the executive director of Justice Democrats
