Welcome to The Long Run

A year after Donald Trump’s reelection, the Democratic Party is still facing a fundamental question: What does it stand for?

Recent victories in New Jersey and Virginia reveal a party beginning to pull itself off the mat. But they do little to change the underlying dynamics that powered Trump’s return. In 2024, the president improved his performance in all 50 states — the first time in 44 years in which the losing party failed to gain ground in even a single state. His inroads were especially pronounced in the heart of blue America: Of the five states that shifted toward Trump the most, four were deep-blue states boasting full Democratic control. Those inroads were propelled by particularly strong gains in urban centers like Los Angeles County, which moved 11 points to the right, and New York City, which swung 16 points.

The results offered definitive proof of just how much of a liability local Democratic governance had become. That vulnerability has now grown to far more than a brand problem: Halfway through the decade, big blue states are hemorrhaging population, while red states continue to grow, positioning them to expand their electoral power after the next census.

Democrats’ current predicament comes after a quarter century in which their national tickets were drawn almost exclusively from the rosters of Congress: From 2000 to 2024, nine of the 10 people on the Democratic Party’s national tickets, including all six of the party’s nominees for president, were senators or former senators. The last time the party nominated a sitting or former governor for president was in 1996. That trend is not only historically anomalous — it’s the longest either party has gone without nominating a governor since the mid-19th century — it stands in stark contrast to the approach of the Republican Party, whose tickets featured a governor every cycle between 2000 and 2020.  

It’s difficult not to see a connection between senators’ domination of national tickets and the party’s overall unpopularity: Polls find that Americans now perceive the Democratic Party as an ineffective group of weak, professorial elites, skilled at oration and inept at delivery.

Amid these dynamics, many Democratic governors stand as an exception to the party’s malaise. Polls find governors are some of the party’s most popular figures, and many have found success in the exact battleground territory the party’s national standard-bearers have struggled in; four of the six states that flipped to Trump in 2024 are led by Democratic executives. Moreover, governors have proved to be one of the few forces in American political life with the potential to actually frustrate the administration’s ambitions, from staring down funding freezes to fighting White House-led gerrymandering.

The Long Run is premised on a simple idea: The future of the Democratic Party is the most interesting and important story in American politics right now — and the party’s path forward runs through the soon-to-be-24 Democrats serving as governors. 

Governors themselves seem acutely aware of this. Several of them appear poised to enter or seriously consider the 2028 Democratic primary contest, including California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, Maryland’s Wes Moore, Colorado’s Jared Polis, and Massachusetts’ Maura Healey. This, too, would break recent precedent: In the 21st century, Democratic presidential primary contests have been so thoroughly dominated by senators that only one governor, Howard Dean in 2004, has even entered the top tier of candidates.

But the 2028 primary contest is arguably the endpoint of the story. The long run back to the White House starts now. As the 2024 election demonstrated, issues of bureaucratic efficiency, quality of life, and, especially, affordability are poised to dominate American politics for the foreseeable future. As 2024 also showed, voters’ perceptions of those issues are shaped over years, not months. Repairing voters’ impression of the Democratic Party’s positions, and its ability to deliver on those positions, will be crucial to a 2028 victory. No Democrats in the country will have more sway over that project than those currently sitting in governors’ mansions. Their decisions over the next few years — on public safety and disorder, on the cost of living, on climate policy — will have a profound impact on the fortunes of the eventual nominee, whoever they may be.

And, lest any readers skeptical of or opposed to the Democratic Party feel this story doesn’t affect them, it’s worth remembering that tens of millions of conservatives live in blue America. In 2024, Donald Trump received more votes in California than in Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Mississippi, and Arkansas combined. How each party wields its power at the state and local levels affects all of us, whether we like it or not.

During my career in political journalism, I’ve always tried to find the next big story, even if it takes me to unexpected places. This is partly due to having a life experience different from many in this industry. Having grown up in the religious right and built a career in journalism without a college degree, I haven’t had the luxury of, or interest in, adhering to traditional ways of thinking and moving. This has often enabled me to look beyond the dogma of the day: As early as 2022, I was writing about the liability of Joe Biden’s age and the rightward drift of nonwhite and working-class voters — the two stories that came to define the 2024 election. 

I believe this is the political story of the next few years, the one that could impact the trajectory of the next decade and beyond, and I can only cover it with your support. 

A premium subscription to The Long Run gets you a weekly reported piece that hits on one or more of these stories:

As well as:

Free subscribers get:

While many good and worthy outlets are covering some of these stories, The Long Run is the only outlet covering all of them together, from a national lens. 

I have nearly a decade of experience in political journalism, during which I have traveled the country, broken national news, and interviewed dozens of members of Congress, Cabinet officials, and political operatives at the very center of power. My work has been featured or published in outlets including the New Republic, Politico, the Washington Post, and Axios, among others. Most recently, I covered national politics at The Recount, where I continue to host a monthly YouTube series that has accumulated over 3 million views.

So much of political journalism nowadays is caught up in tribalism and self-gratification. I believe strongly that, right now, seeing outside of one’s own experience and circle is essential for any journalist. We can, and ought to, have deep disagreements with people whose company we enjoy; we can, and ought to, find agreement on occasion with people we can’t imagine socializing with. Strange bedfellows don’t bother us here.

More than ever, good reporting and analysis require journalists to lean into skepticism: of their own assumptions, their own team, and themselves. I can promise you The Long Run will do so — beginning this Wednesday. 

I hope you’ll subscribe and support my work here. Let’s go.

Steve Morris