As Democrats descend on party dinners in South Carolina and New Hampshire, fund-raise across the country and drop into podcasts or start their own, insider buzz about the 2028 shadow presidential primary is intensifying.
But several potential candidates have a more pressing item on their to-do lists: win re-election.
From Maryland and Pennsylvania to Minnesota and Illinois, a number of prominent Democrats are running for re-election in 2026 or are likely to seek another term, with some announcements expected as soon as this summer.
While the midterm elections will carry seismic implications for governing and test whether Democrats can reassert power, they will also go a long way toward shaping the party’s new-look leadership and its 2028 field.
The contests will give ambitious Democrats a major national platform, a chance to build momentum and stress-test their messaging, and an excuse to expand their fund-raising networks.
“The folks who can put that together in ’25 and ’26 will be viewed to be very viable when the cycle turns,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, who has twice led the Democratic Governors Association.
“One big risk is, you’ve got to govern every day,” he added. “The other risk is, politically, that you don’t do well.”
Commanding victories, impressive upsets or overperformances in challenging terrain will instantly catapult 2026 candidates to the center of the national conversation about 2028. That race will begin the moment the midterms are over, if not sooner, and the Democratic field is expected to be crowded, wide open and unpredictable.
Yet Republicans will be eager to tarnish promising presidential hopefuls early, and losses or underperformances could take the wind out of the sails of would-be candidates before they ever make it out of their home states.
As 2026 races take shape, here are five things we’re watching:
Do blue-state Democrats run up the score?
Several Democrats seen as possible presidential candidates face re-election in liberal states, including Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Govs. Tim Walz of Minnesota and JB Pritzker of Illinois have not yet said whether they will seek third terms, but both are widely expected to do so.
As blue-state incumbents, they have more leeway to travel around the country campaigning for other candidates or fund-raising — and building national networks in the process.
“It’s crucial that we speak out on a national level,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview. “If we don’t win federally, Illinois loses.”
Governors can also easily frame themselves as foils to President Trump’s Washington.
“I don’t just have to rail against the ‘big, beautiful bill’” pushed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Moore said. “I can show what an alternative looks like.”
But a closer-than-expected victory in some of these states — never mind an unexpected defeat — could alter the 2028 conversation, with Democrats already weighing questions of electability.
“If you lost your election bid, that would probably be not a great indicator,” Mr. Walz deadpanned, even as he suggested that the margins of victory wouldn’t matter much beyond the Beltway.
Re-election bids also mean there are longer records to scrutinize and, sometimes, rougher in-state politics to navigate.
In Maryland, one question is whether Larry Hogan, who was a popular Republican governor but lost a Senate bid last year, will challenge Mr. Moore. But a person briefed on Mr. Hogan’s thinking, who insisted on anonymity, suggested that such a challenge was unlikely and said that the former governor had not yet taken steps to prepare for such a run.
How close is Pennsylvania?
The last time Gov. Josh Shapiro ran for office in Pennsylvania, in 2022, his far-right opponent spent the homestretch of the campaign in fasting and prayer.
National Republicans abandoned the race and Mr. Shapiro won easily, becoming the “highest vote-getter in Pennsylvania gubernatorial history,” his team said.
But Republicans have since made gains in Pennsylvania and hope to field a more credible challenger next year — and, perhaps, to slow Mr. Shapiro’s momentum before any national campaign.
“The people in the state are going to try to bang him up,” said David Urban, a Republican strategist who has served as a Trump adviser and has deep ties to Pennsylvania. “National Republicans will try to bang him up”
But Mr. Urban, who called Mr. Shapiro a friend, added that “whoever’s going to run against Josh is going to be pushing a big rock up the hill.”
Mr. Shapiro, who was a finalist in former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running-mate search last year, is a popular governor of a critical presidential battleground and has a sprawling donor network. Democrats have for years seen him as a possible White House contender.
If a stronger Republican runs against him this time, his ability to fend off the challenge will be closely watched by Democrats beyond his state.
Mr. Shapiro, who has not yet announced a re-election bid, declined an interview. But asked by The New York Times in December about his re-election plans, he said: “I love what I’m doing. I hope to do it for a good long while.”
Who emerges as a standout surrogate?
Some of the most talked-about Democrats next year may not be on the ballot. The surrogate circuit is a campaign trail in itself that can be quite revealing.
With whom are the swing-seat moderates most comfortable appearing? Who is making the rounds at party dinners to fire up activists? Who is campaigning for Democrats in conservative areas — or in the traditional early-voting primary states?
One increasingly prominent figure is Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who is not up for re-election but will lead the Democratic Governors Association next year.
“If I do my job right, that paragraph that speculates on 2028 candidates will get a lot bigger,” he said in an interview, emphasizing his D.G.A. responsibilities. “I hope that we’ll win some races that will put people into that conversation, and I hope along the way, I can help in other types of races that may put people into that conversation.”
Asked if his name should be part of that 2028 presidential conversation, he didn’t hesitate.
“I was pretty sure that this was going to be my last political job,” he said. “But I don’t want to leave a broken country to my kids, so I’m going to be out there with my voice, making sure that the Democratic Party is talking about the core concerns of our American people.”
He suggested that he would assess in the future “whether I’m in a position to heal the country or it’s someone else” but added that his focus was “getting us back on track” as a nation.
Democrats who are out of office, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, are expected to support candidates across the country. And some who are up for re-election, including Mr. Walz, Mr. Pritzker and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have already spent considerable time on the road.
“We have to take back the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., period, end of sentence,” Mr. Pritzker said. “If you’re not doing something to assist in that endeavor, you’re doing it wrong. And that’s not a message to or about people who may be thinking about running in 2028. That’s a message to all Democrats.”
Who are the unexpected stars?
At the beginning of the 2018 midterm cycle, Beto O’Rourke was a little-known congressman from Texas mounting a long-shot campaign against Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican.
By the end, Mr. O’Rourke was seen as a serious 2020 presidential prospect. That bid fizzled, but what he did — overperform in a red state and become a national name — could well play out for others next year.
Keep an eye on other Democrats running in traditionally Republican-leaning territory, like Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who faces a difficult re-election next year.
“I expect that we’ll see people who are doing the work in 2025 and doing the work in 2026, whose names we don’t know right now, will become part of the conversation,” Mr. O’Rourke said, adding that the tumult of 2025 made it difficult to think about races several years away. “Who’s willing to step up and fight and do something about it right now?”
Can anyone rescue their party’s toxic brand?
Poll after poll shows that whatever reservations Americans have about Republicans, they take a dim view of the Democratic Party, too. The midterm elections will begin to test a range of theories about how to repair that reputation.
“There’s an authenticity problem,” Mr. Moore said.
Can anyone energize voters around an affirmative new vision or bold policy ideas that go beyond reining in Mr. Trump? Does anyone successfully use a fight with the party’s left flank to win over more voters in the middle — or manage to create a new coalition entirely? Such questions may not be answered until 2028, but the clues will come sooner.
“The nominee in ’28 should be someone who will make expensive statements, statements that the exhausted majority loves but the overly online left hates,” said Representative Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat. “A campaign is one way to do it. Another way to do it is just governing.”
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
Katie Glueck is a Times national political reporter.
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