Democratic Presidential Prospects Are Unified in Shutdown Messaging Fight

[Celerity]

Democrats are using the shutdown fight as an opportunity to show their base they can bag some victories against Trump.

https://www.notus.org/democrats/2028-potential-candidates-government-shutdown

https://archive.ph/oQhUt



Democrats who are seen as contenders for the 2028 presidential nomination have been at the front of their party’s shutdown messaging battle. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has posted relentlessly on social media to frame the shutdown as a failure by President Donald Trump and Republicans. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared in a video with Sen. Bernie Sanders to call out Republicans over health care. Sen. Cory Booker says he plans to hold events with constituents. “I’m going to try to continue to elevate our message,” Booker, who earlier this year performed a Senate speech of over 25 hours in protest of Trump’s policies, told NOTUS.

“I literally have heard from people in New Jersey from all over the political spectrum who are like. ‘We are facing existential challenges,’” Booker said. “There’s this feeling in our state, and you can see through the polling numbers that even among Republicans, they see a lot of crisis here and they want somebody to stand up and fight.” Booker, like others potential 2028 hopefuls, has not said whether he will run for president. But he and other potential candidates are speaking out as part of a push by Democrats to make clear to their discontented base that they’re willing to fight Trump. And while these Democrats could eventually face off in future primaries, their shutdown message is remarkably similar: This is Republicans’ fault.

Newsom has attempted to match Trump’s style of mocking his opponents by depicting the president as a Marie Antoinette type who is building a ballroom while his constituents might be subject to a rise in health care costs. On his X account, Newsom depicted Vice President JD Vance and other Republican leaders as Minions, lying about the shutdown. In her video with Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez called Republicans’ government funding bill “one of the dirtiest tricks that is being pulled on the American people right now.”

Sanders, who ran for president in 2020 and has been appearing with Ocasio-Cortez in Republican districts on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, told NOTUS that the shutdown is not “a question of standing up to Trump” but a matter of “showing the country that we cannot allow 15 million people to be thrown off their health care.” Neither Newsom or Ocasio-Cortez immediately responded to requests for comment. As far as running in 2028, Sanders’ office directed NOTUS to an August interview with CNN where the Vermont Senator said, “Lets not worry about that. I am going to be 84 years of age next month, as a matter of fact. So I think that speaks for itself.”

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