Who are the next leaders of the Democratic party?

WASHINGTON — American presidential elections tend to be a zero-sum game for the parties and their voters. Win, and everything is great. Lose, and your party is rudderless, leaderless and powerless.

So it goes for the Democrats after Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat to former President Donald Trump. Questions about who will lead the party and in what direction will be hotly debated as officials explore what went wrong and forge plans to oppose the next Trump administration.

Jockeying has already begun, and not all ambition may be rewarded. Appearing too eager to seize the opportunity presented by Harris’ defeat could backfire if Democrats are not ready to move forward. But if the period after the 2016 election is any guide, scores of Democratic figures and groups will try to fill the leadership void created as President Joe Biden leaves office.

Four years is a very long time in politics. In that time, Barack Obama went from a state senator to a presidential nominee. In even less time than that, Trump transformed from being a reality show figure pushing a racist lie about Obama to president himself. It is not out of the question that the Democrats’ next leader is not someone on the nation’s radar today.

With those caveats, here’s a look at six groups of people who could determine which direction Democrats take as the second Trump administration unfolds.

Harris and Tim Walz

The last sitting vice president to lose a general election, Al Gore, waited more than two years before announcing he would not run for president again the next cycle. Until Harris says otherwise, she remains a top leader in her party, has control of its largest donor list and maintains generally good relations with a wide array of supporters.

On the other hand, she ran a poor presidential campaign during the 2020 race, and Trump swept her in every battleground state this year. If she wanted to run again, she would probably need to win over skeptical Democrats with impressive showings in mainstream news interviews and town-hall events — forums where her performances this year were often cautious or halting.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, unlike Harris, has a day job to return to. He goes back to his state as a national figure — though he will lack the unified Democratic control of the state Legislature he enjoyed for the last two years.

There is little question that Walz’s ambition extends beyond Minnesota. Although he failed to stem Harris’ losses in rural areas, he remains well liked by fellow Democratic governors and former congressional colleagues. During a concession speech Friday in Minnesota, he signaled that he was eager to remain relevant in the party.

“Get back in this fight when you’re ready,” he said. “And know that, whenever you’re ready to get back in that fight, I’ll be standing right here, ready to fight the fight with you.”

Ambitious governors

Democrats have a deep bench of governors who are widely seen as influential party leaders.

They include Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Wes Moore of Maryland, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, among others.

Murphy is among the potential candidates to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee who are now having discussions about running for that post. Newsom and Pritzker on Friday began the process of putting forward legislation to codify anti-Trump measures into their state laws.

Shapiro, who was a finalist to become Harris’ running mate and emerged politically unscathed from this year’s election, remains focused on the needs of Pennsylvanians, according to a spokesperson. That was evidenced by his aides Monday promoting a local news story about at least 64 new jobs in a county where Trump won two-thirds of the vote last week.

Pritzker is also taking in the new political landscape.

“When you’re not in the Oval Office anymore and your party’s not in the Oval Office anymore, the focus and the locus of power moves, and it gets spread out,” he said in an interview Monday. “I’m not going to tell you where it will land or what I think, because I don’t know.”

Biden cabinet members

Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary, and Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, are longtime favorites of Democratic donors, and they both spent a lot of time — in their “personal capacity,” of course — stumping for Biden and then for Harris.

Buttigieg remains one of the party’s most gifted communicators, particularly on television, where he was often dispatched to explain its policies and positions on Fox News, an assignment many fellow Democrats declined.

Raimondo, a former Rhode Island governor, was seen as a rising star in the Biden Cabinet, but she is far better known in Washington circles and by donors than among the party’s base.

Prominent senators

Democrats will be in the minority for at least two years, and the odds of passing the party’s desired bills are pretty slim. So attention-hungry Democratic senators will have to focus instead on cable news hits and popular liberal podcasts.

These lawmakers include Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

Duckworth was vetted in Biden’s vice presidential search in 2020, and Kelly was a finalist to be Harris’ running mate this year. Fetterman has transformed from a progressive hero into a leading voice of the party’s moderates, while Murphy is its Senate champion for gun control measures. Warnock is perhaps the party’s most gifted orator serving in office.

All are between 51 and 60 years old — spring chickens in the Senate — and are as well positioned as anyone in the party to speak to the young voters who have backed away from Democrats since 2020.

Progressives

On the other hand, the candidate who did the best with young voters in the last two competitive Democratic primary contests was Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who was just reelected at 83 years old.

Sanders very much wants to steer the party toward his vision of politics, which is at odds with the donor and corporate interests that often rule the day, even if his age means he has run his last national election. A spokesperson for Sanders said he intended to remain involved in guiding the party’s direction but declined to speculate on his future plans.

Other liberals who fit roughly into the Sanders milieu include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ro Khanna of California and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

One other name to expect to hear a lot more from next year is Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, who is expected to succeed Jayapal as chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“Progressives in Congress the next two years really need to focus on pushing popular economic issues where liberals, conservatives and independent Americans agree with us over people like Donald Trump,” Casar said in an interview last week.

Celebrities, billionaires and other fantasy candidates

When Trump won in 2016, Democrats floated all manner of celebrities and ultrawealthy people as possible presidential contenders.

An Oprah Winfrey candidacy was the dream for the party. Mark Zuckerberg had onetime aides to Obama arrange a private tour of the country. Billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg spent many millions to run for president in the 2020 race, efforts that paid off handsomely for their consultants but hardly for the candidates.

This time, there will undoubtedly be new calls for Michelle Obama to become more vocal in the party. Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO, considered running for president as an independent candidate in 2020.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who was an energetic supporter of Harris on the campaign trail, has previously expressed interest in running himself.

The country might even hear again about presidential ambitions from actor Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock, who in 2017 suggested he was interested.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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