David Plouffe, a veteran Democratic strategist, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, and senior adviser to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, said in a New York Times guest essay published Jan. 15 that Democrats need a sweeping reset to compete in more politically hostile territory.
Plouffe wrote that it is tempting for Democrats to believe the party’s path will improve simply because of “the deep unpopularity of Mr. Trump and the MAGA movement,” but relying on this and the results of the Trump administration’s policies will not be enough. To win in “politically unforgiving, even hostile, territory,” he wrote, Democrats must overhaul what he called the party’s “broken brand and stale agenda” and elevate “new faces and new leaders.”
