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Three of the most high-profile Democrats in the country, who are considered potential top-tier contenders for the party’s 2028 presidential nomination, are crossing paths at a major Democratic Party summit.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois are all participating in the Democratic National Committee’s annual winter meeting, which this year kicked off Thursday in Los Angeles.
The main focus for the hundreds of committee members and party officials attending the confab is reviewing the party’s decisive victories in last month’s 2025 elections and better than expected performances in this year’s special elections, and training sessions to prepare for next year’s midterms.
But with the unofficial start of the next White House race less than a year away, and what’s likely to be a bruising battle among Democrats over the party’s presidential nominating calendar getting underway, 2028 is also in the spotlight.
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, center, and JD Pritzker of Illinois. (AP, Reuters, and Getty )
Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, a member of the DNC’s influential Rules and Bylaws Committee, told Fox News that while the focus of the winter meeting is “overwhelmingly 2026,” he added, “there’s interest in 2028.”
Buckley added that the major party confabs are an opportunity for “all of our stars to address the DNC.”
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Pointing to the appearances this week by Harris, Newsom and Pritzker, a DNC committee member sees appearances by the three Democratic heavyweights as an early screen test.
“It sets the tone not just for a Democratic landslide in the 2026 midterm elections, but it gives them an opportunity to start honing in on a winning message for Democrats in 2028,” said the committee member, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala in San Francisco, California, on April 30, 2025. (Camille Cohen/AFP via Getty Images)
Harris, who earlier this year passed on launching a 2026 gubernatorial campaign in her home state of California, is keeping the door wide open to a 2028 presidential run.
“I am not done,” the former vice president said in an October interview with the BBC. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.”
Newsom, asked by CBS News in October if he would give a presidential bid “serious thought” after the 2026 midterms, answered, “Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise. I’d just be lying, and I can’t do that.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento, California. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)
Pritzker, who’s running for re-election next year for a third four-year term steering Illinois, told NBC News in August that “I can’t rule anything out” when asked about a possible White House run.
The Illinois governor held a fundraiser on behalf of the DNC on Thursday evening.
Newsom made a stop earlier this year in South Carolina, which held the first sanctioned primary in the DNC’s 2024 presidential nominating calendar. And Pritzker has visited New Hampshire, which for a century held the lead-off primary in the Democrats’ calendar, and Nevada, another early-voting state. Harris has been crisscrossing the country amid her book tour.
While Harris, Newsom, and Pritzker are among the most well-known Democrats nationally, there are more than a dozen other Democrats thought to be potential 2028 White House contenders. And most of them have also been paying visits to the early voting states as well as parachuting into the 2025 campaign trail.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks to the press on Sept. 2, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Among them are Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan; Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut; Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Ro Khanna of California; former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and former Chicago mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
With the Democrats aiming to win back the House majority and possibly the Senate in the 2026 midterms, expect plenty of campaign traffic next year from the potential 2028 contenders.
“It was my impression, talking to the various camps, that they’ll be very engaged…because they realize how critically important is to win the House and Senate majority but also help elect candidates up and down the ballot,” Buckley said.
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