June 11, 2026, 4:08 p.m.
Former White House adviser Rahm Emanuel has a plan for that.
The former Chicago mayor and—if his trips to Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada are any indication—future presidential candidate released a bevy of proposals over the last six months: providing incentives for universities to offer free tuition to students from households earning less than $200,000, banning children under 16 from social media platforms, and setting a mandatory retirement age for public officials.
Emanuel is one of a growing number of potential 2028 Democratic candidates floating policy trial balloons before officially launching a White House bid. After some much-needed soul searching following the 2024 election, other high-profile Democrats are following suit.
Last week, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona penned a proposal to increase the minimum wage to $20 per hour and endorsed a policy that would cover all employees in the same sector under the same bargaining agreement. In March, Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey released proposals to cut tax rates for low- and middle-income taxpayers.
Democratic strategists told National Journal that candidates can use policy rollouts to break through in a crowded news cycle and stress-test whether these policies fit into their larger brands.
“It’s not about how you address each individual issue and talk about it, it’s how all of those things are pasted together under a thesis for what a candidate believes,” Eric Schmeltzer, a Democratic strategist who writes a blog on messaging strategies, told National Journal.
Schmeltzer said candidates first need to present their vision for the country, and policies will naturally flow from there.
With no singular leader of the Democratic Party, the 2028 primary is likely to be crowded. The 2020 Democratic primary field, which similarly had no heir apparent, was the largest in modern history. At one point, 29 candidates jockeyed for position on the debate stage. National Journal is currently tracking the travel of 15 potential Democratic 2028 wannabes. Underdog candidates looking to gather momentum might be able to do so by unveiling policy proposals before their rivals.
“I’ve seen more Rahm Emanuel on TV than I have in a decade,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative. “It helps to have something to talk about and to then drive that earned media attention.”
As Democrats formulate their message going into 2028, some in the party also stress the need for candidates to avoid jargon and make their messaging more accessible. Many in the likely 2028 field are gravitating toward eye-catching policy proposals that are easy to understand.
Most people coming out of Washington are going to lack a set of accomplishments from their job. ... Not a lot of great things have come out of Washington recently. ”
— Democratic strategist Craig Hughes
“Sometimes it’s the think tanks that come out with these great policies, but they don’t know how to sell it,” Gallego said last week at WelcomeFest, a center-left gathering in Washington. “And that’s when you come to the people that know how to talk about it and know how to actually really materialize it to everyday people."
“It communicates a very clear and accessible thing that people can grab onto,” Democratic strategist Jesse Lehrich said.
Dan Geldon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s former chief of staff, said the proposals being unveiled now likely serve as trial balloons for candidates to test before they’re in the spotlight of an official presidential campaign.
“This is more a period where if you’re a senator you’re quietly introducing bills that then you talk about more in a year,” Geldon said.
For now, these proposals are more likely to sway political insiders than they are likely to excite primary voters.
“Voters don’t read white papers and live in the weeds of policy,” Geldon said. “However, presidential candidates need to attract attention, and they need to create distinctions with their opponents. And policy is one of the few mechanisms for doing both.”
Aside from Emanuel's proposals, most current plans are coming from the Senate side of the likely primary field. Members of Congress might need to lean more on white papers, as opposed to governors who may be able to point to enacted changes.
“Most people coming out of Washington are going to lack a set of accomplishments from their job, whereas governors and others could have a laundry list of real accomplishments and new policies and delivering,” said Craig Hughes, who advised Sen. Michael Bennet’s 2020 presidential campaign. “Not a lot of great things have come out of Washington recently.”
Members of Congress have struggled in primaries for higher office this cycle. GOP Reps. Randy Feenstra of Iowa, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, and Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman of South Carolina lost their primaries for governor in their respective states, and Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Jasmine Crockett of Texas lost their Democratic primaries for Senate.
Many current Democratic policy proposals take a populist approach, like Booker's and Van Hollen's tax cuts and Gallego's $20-per-hour minimum wage.
Those ideas differ from the ones that dominated the 2020 presidential primary, when Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders competed for bigger and bolder answers to issues like health care, climate change, and student debt.
“The 2020 presidential primary was the least productive exercise in recent memory,” Hughes said. “And it was such an incredible race to the far, far left in many ways. And it hurt us down the road.”
