While Washington Democrats are in disarray, the party’s top presidential contenders in governors’ mansions across the country are playing a more careful game: talking tough while making budget concessions and addressing illegal immigration — issues American voters clearly backed in November and continue to support now.
Democratic Govs. J.B. Pritzker (Ill.), Josh Shapiro (Pa.), Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), and Gavin Newsom (Calif.) are all considered potential presidential nominees, and all have spent years as the champions of activists far to the left of the country’s national electorate.
They spent years greedily drinking from the resistance’s cup when it was all the rage, and the excesses of the past eight years have stained their teeth.
Pritzker struck an angry tone in his state of the state speech last week, comparing Trump’s return to office to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Look just behind all that noise, however, and it becomes clear that the governor is working to establish his moderate bona fides in advance of any moves toward national politics.
