Examining their last presidential election loss and looking ahead to 2028, Democrats are divided on whether the issue is that their candidates aren't succeeding in selling voters on the party's policies or the problem is the ideas themselves. So they plan to put together a book of Democratic stances, with a new section released every quarter, for candidates to work with in the next primaries, the New York Times reports. Project 2029 is modeled after the right-wing agenda President Trump disavowed as a candidate and put into action once in office, though not by name.
Party operatives aren't concerned that their attacks on Project 2025 will rebound on them. They just need to tell a compelling story. In the 2024 campaign, "we didn't lack policies," said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. "But we lacked a functioning narrative to communicate those policies." She said her party's candidates hit voters with "agencies and acronyms and statistics" rather than with a clear story about "what we're going to fight for." Installments in Project 2029 will be released quarterly in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.
But it's not just the format that Democrats can take a lesson from, said a former aide in Democratic White Houses who's on the project's advisory board. "Liberals underestimate the power of Trump's ideas," said Neera Tanden, adding that her party needs better ones to compete. "We get wrapped up in his personality. But he puts forward an idea like 'No tax on tips,' and that's an important signifier that he is championing working-class people," she added. The project has Democratic skeptics. "Developing policies by checking every coalitional box is how we got in this mess in the first place," said Adam Jentleson, who's mulling launching a new think tank.
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