ATLANTA — Anderson Clayton wanted a headline name to speak at North Carolina Democrats’ summer gala — but the state party chair bypassed familiar Capitol Hill figures, looking instead to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
She described him as “a real fighter” against President Donald Trump, someone who gets things done because he actually controls levers of government — unlike any Democrat in Washington.
“I wanted people to hear from one of the Democratic governors who has defended their state, who could look at the president and say, ‘I’m in a position of power right now just like you are, and I’m doing good things,’” Clayton said.
Indeed, some Democratic activists see the party’s 23 governors as their best answer to Trump’s second Republican presidency. Those statehouse chiefs provide proof voters will embrace alternatives — and could give them a roadmap for the 2026 midterms, when Democrats hope at least to reclaim a U.S. House majority. They also will likely be central to the party’s hopes in the 2028 presidential race.
There is no question Democrats are down at the federal level. Republicans control the White House, the House and the Senate, allowing Trump to pursue an aggressive agenda. The party lacks a singular leader, and recent polling shows Democratic voters are deeply pessimistic about their party’s future.
Yet many governors reject the narrative that Democrats are reeling.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a 46-year-old first-term executive, points to his work on economic development, job growth and reducing crime.
“Who was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement? I mean, there were multiple people who had leadership roles,” Moore said. “I mean, if you want to see … the direction that people should be going, show me a place that’s delivering results.”
U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-New Jersey, has been in congressional majorities and in the minority. Now she’s the Democratic nominee for governor in one of two 2025 governor’s races. Her former House colleague Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee in Virginia.
“I can tell you what attracted me to run for governor is that there’s no ability to blame anything on anybody else,” Sherrill said. “You have a vision as governor, and you have to deliver for people.”
Emily’s List President Jessica Mackler, whose organization backs Democratic women for public office, praised Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a possible 2028 presidential contender, and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is seeking reelection in 2026, for canceling some medical debts.
Pritzker secured a $15 per hour state minimum wage. In Kansas, Democratic Governors Association chair and two-term Gov. Laura Kelly worked with Republican legislative majorities to reduce and finally eliminate state sales taxes on groceries. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running for the Senate, expanded Medicaid insurance coverage in states with Republican legislative majorities.
“Governors are so important because they are on the front lines,” Mackler said.
Democratic governors, she added, have shored up abortion access after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision ended a national right to the procedure, and they’ve defended access to health care for transgender patients, even in conservative states. That includes Kentucky’s Beshear, elected twice in a state Trump carried three times.
Some governors stand out as aggressive Trump critics, including some possible 2028 contenders.
“Our democracy is on the line,” Pritzker said at the North Carolina event. “Are you ready to fight?”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom jousts with the Trump administration on social media, and he’s produced podcasts aimed at Trump voters. But Sherrill and others say being a Democratic governor is not simply about opposing Trump on a personal level.
“People are furious that a president who ran on affordability is actually raising costs on everyone,” she said.
She cited Trump’s trade wars and the GOP’s tax cuts that are tilted to the wealthy while their safety net program cuts hit the poor and working class. Democrats, she said, must level attacks based on how policies affect voters, then offer plausible alternatives.
“I’m talking to thousands of New Jerseyans every day, and what I’m hearing is, ‘I just need somebody who’s going to go to Trenton and deliver for me,’” Sherrill said.
Republicans have defended their bill, saying it was crucial because there would’ve been a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term would expire.
Bradley Beychok, a Democratic consultant and co-founder of the American Bridge super political action committee, said the dynamics in Washington are frustrating.
“When you lose a presidential election and the House and the Senate, no one is happy, and they shouldn’t be,” he said.
But, Beychok added, “the reality is we lost a close election” and had key down-ballot wins.
Republicans had the so-called Washington trifecta at the start of Trump’s first term, and Democrats bottomed out then at just 15 out of 50 governors. But in succeeding years they flipped nine governors’ seats. Only one Democratic incumbent governor has lost since, and their current slate of 23 includes five of seven presidential battlegrounds Trump swept in 2024.
“People are willing to split their ballots because they connect the results they see on the ground with their governors,” said Clayton, who celebrated a win in North Carolina by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein despite Trump carrying the state. “Now we just have to do a better job of localizing the federal elections the same way.”
A Spanberger win in Virginia would give Democrats 24 governors heading into 2026, when 36 executive seats will be on midterm ballots. New Jersey currently has a Democratic governor.
History suggests a base of state power bodes well for opposition parties in Washington.
Bill Clinton was a longtime governor in 1992 when he ended Republicans’ winning streak of three presidential election landslides. His successor, George W. Bush, was among the many Republicans governors elected in the GOP’s 1994 midterm sweep. Before Clinton and Bush, Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter won the presidency as former governors.
Many current Democratic executives have visited early nominating states or, like Pritzker, general election battlegrounds. Most of them, Maryland’s Moore included, dismiss 2028 speculation.
“We don’t have the time,” he said. ___ Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Colorado Springs, Colo., contributed to this report.