How Can Democrats Make Their Comeback? A Candidate Who Also Lost in 2024 Might Actually Have Some Answers.

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Former House Rep. Cori Bush thinks she knows why Democrats lost last year, and how they can win in 2028. Sure, the former Squad member also lost last year—she got primaried by another Democrat in August, after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee threw at least $12 million^[2] behind her opponent because she had been an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza. But when I caught up with her recently, I started to think that maybe she was slightly ahead of her time when she got primaried, and that the national political moment has since changed in a way that favors candidates like her.

Let’s take a trip back to August 2024: There was still plentiful optimism about the likelihood of a Kamala Harris win. Democrats were heartened by signs of economic recovery in the years after COVID had shut everything down—but while the fundamental indicators^[3] pointed to a healthy economy, the party seemed to sorely underestimate^[4] the discontent that inflation was sowing among the electorate.

Back then, the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency remained for many a somewhat abstract possibility. Elon Musk hadn’t yet run through the federal government with a chain saw; we hadn’t yet experienced Trump’s tariffs; we hadn’t yet seen how Trump would demolish democratic norms left and right and deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities. Republicans hadn’t yet passed a bill that cuts Medicaid for 15 million Americans^[5] over the next decade and basically writes Immigration and Customs Enforcement a blank check^[6] to become a military force of its own.

Today there appears to be more of an appetite among the Democratic base for someone who prioritizes fighting back over keeping the party establishment happy. Angry voters are showing up at town halls, demanding that Democrats show more of a spine^[7]. In an NBC News poll^[8] from March, only 27 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of the Democratic Party, while 65 percent indicated they want congressional Democrats to stick to their positions and sacrifice bipartisanship. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s national “Fighting Oligarchy” tour seemed to strike a chord, bringing out upward of 30,000 attendees^[9] at each stop.

Bush might have lost by about 5 percentage points^[10] in 2024, but the political climate has since shifted in a way that’s more favorable to someone like her, who’s willing to go out on a limb for her beliefs. “We’ve heard it over and over again: People are looking for a fighter,” Bush told me as we sat in a busy Manhattan hotel lobby, on the heels of her comeback-bid announcement^[11].

And from the vantage point of late 2025, it’s clear that many of her positions—which were criticized^[12] at the time for being too extreme—have aged well.

In 2021, while just a freshman lawmaker, when the federal eviction moratorium was set to expire, Bush staged a sit-in on the steps of the Capitol to push the White House to extend it. Having experienced homelessness herself three times in the past, Bush knew how high the stakes were for her constituents. With days left until the moratorium would be lifted, she decided to set up camp outside the Capitol, with only a sleeping bag and a lawn chair, in protest, not knowing whether she’d be successful in compelling the Biden administration to intervene. “I just believed that I had to do something, and in order to do something,” Bush said, “I knew that we had to make enough noise to where people paid attention.”

Over the course of three days, Bush’s protest galvanized her fellow progressive lawmakers and even pulled in^[13] former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all piling on to urge the administration to extend the moratorium via executive order. By Day 3, the White House relented, and the moratorium was extended—though the Supreme Court would later rule that it was unlawful^[14]. Nevertheless, Bush’s protest at least temporarily staved off hundreds of thousands of Americans from being removed from their homes.

While some of Cori Bush’s boldest positions have aged well, many of the supposedly safe, focus group–tested, consultant-driven decisions that establishment Democrats made in 2024 have not.

Two years later, just weeks after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Bush was one of only a few legislators calling for a ceasefire. In a speech delivered on Oct. 16^[15], she mourned the loss of life on both sides and decried the Israeli bombing of Gaza. “Let me be clear,” she said at the time. “The collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime.” Bush’s stance drew the ire of AIPAC—and ultimately cost Bush her seat.

But two years after that, U.S. public opinion on Gaza has shifted in Bush’s direction. As Israeli forces bombed numerous hospitals^[16], blocked aid deliveries^[17], and killed a record number of journalists^[18], the war became increasingly unpopular^[19]. A Gallup poll conducted in July 2025 found that only 32 percent^[20] of Americans approved of Israel’s actions in Gaza—a 10 percent drop from September 2024. Democrats in particular have changed their minds. In 2023, according to New York Times polling^[21], 34 percent of Democrats sympathized with Israel and 31 percent with Palestinians. Two years later, only 13 percent said they sympathized with Israel, and 54 percent said they sided with Palestinians.

While some of Bush’s boldest positions have aged well, many of the supposedly safe, focus group–tested, consultant-driven decisions^[22] that establishment Democrats made in 2024 have not. Nearly a full year after Trump beat Harris, the Democratic Party’s approval rating has hit alarming lows^[23], and voters are fleeing the party. Democratic leaders have spent months casting around in the wilderness, grasping for a strategy to turn things around.

One narrative about why Democrats lost is that they swung too far left^[24] on certain issues that alienated the majority of voters. Many centrists have rallied around the argument that Democrats listened too much to identity-focused special interest groups^[25].

Bush disagrees with this read of the situation: She says the party is ignoring groups that are actually in touch with local communities—the kinds she encountered as an activist during the 2014 Ferguson protests, organizations with a much deeper and clearer understanding of how voters are feeling and what issues they’re facing. “If they’re not a big enough named group or a well-funded group, then we don’t listen to those folks,” she said.

If Democrats had been more in touch with the right kinds of community groups in 2024, Bush suggests, they would have known to put more of an emphasis on economic issues. “Democrats have got to turn the focus and start to appreciate those that are all around this country, that are doing the nitty-gritty day-to-day work, that don’t have all the money,” Bush said. “The ones that the community trusts.”

That’s one place where Bush and the more consultant-driven members of her party can agree: The way forward for Democrats is to increasingly focus on the kitchen-table issues that affect voters’ quality of life. She said they need to be able to clearly convey to voters: “We care about making sure you have health care, not just coverage, but that we are lowering costs. We care that your Social Security is safe. We care that the price of groceries are going down. We care about what’s happening to you and your business.”

But although strategist-driven, poll-tested thinking might recommend robotically maintaining a focus on kitchen-table issues to the exclusion of everything else—some research firms, for instance, have advised Democrats^[26] not to talk about Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington—Bush stresses that Democrats need candidates who can engage voters on economic issues while also speaking out about their authentic beliefs.

She pointed to Zohran Mamdani as an example of someone who does both well. Mamdani, who pulled off a shocking upset^[27] in New York City’s mayoral primary, campaigned as a democratic socialist on policies like free buses, universal child care, and affordable housing. His positions garnered criticism for being extreme, but voters were drawn to his conviction. “One thing we’ve heard people say: ‘Oh, that’s a politician.’ They expect not to trust you. They expect that, ‘most likely, they’re going to stab me in the back or going to go in the next room and saying something different,’ ” Bush said. “People don’t believe that about Mamdani. People don’t believe he’s going to be someone else in a different room.”

This was a contrast to how voters received Harris, who took some further-left positions in 2016 and 2020 to help make herself stand out. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, for example, presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke proclaimed^[28], “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” In response, Harris said she supported^[29] a mandatory buyback program of military-style assault weapons. When she pivoted to more centrist positions in 2024, she struggled to explain the shift^[30] and what she really believed, coming off as inauthentic and scripted.

To breed a generation of more-authentic candidates, Bush proposes that the party find a way to support people who want to run for office without taking money from groups like AIPAC. In November 2023, when progressives went to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for support after AIPAC committed to spend $100 million to boost pro-Israel candidates and push out those who were insufficiently deferential to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they didn’t get much beyond lukewarm endorsements^[31]. “How do we support those that want to say, “Hey, I don’t want to take this money anymore”? What do you have set up for those folks? That’s something Democrats need to work on,” she said.

While Democrats need stronger messaging, Bush notes, it’s ultimately not enough to pick carefully poll-tested words to placate voters. They need to be able to feel the impact of what Democrats are doing for them.

It will certainly be tough to make voters feel as if Democrats are responsible for making their lives better when the party lacks control of the House or Senate and currently has little leverage to push through legislation. But Bush stresses that that’s the kind of thing that stays with people.

Years after the eviction moratorium, Bush says, strangers still approach her on the street and thank her for it. “I have people that will come up to me: ‘Are you Cori Bush?’ ” she said. “ ‘I am in my home because of what you did on the steps that time.’ ” One person who approached her said they were on the brink of losing their housing in 2021—and that they would have lost custody of their children along with it. “And they said, ‘I have my kids today because of what you did,’ ” Bush said. “Those are the kinds of stories that the Democrats need right now.”

In the months following her primary loss last year, Bush tells me, she was unsure what her next move would be. But in March, as she was back in Missouri, picking up a few things from a local gas station, she felt someone watching her. Confused, she looked over her shoulder and spotted a man in a motorized wheelchair circling the aisle she was standing in, over and over again. Eventually, he came up to her. “Are you Cori Bush?” he asked. Bush said yes, to which he responded, “You want to run again, right?”

Bush was honest, telling the man she was still figuring out what her future could look like. “You better run again, because this is some bull,” the man insisted.

After that, Bush says, more and more of her old constituents stopped her in the streets to ask if she would be running for her old seat. Some even admitted they felt they had voted wrong last year, overly influenced by AIPAC’s negative ads about her. “It has been just a tremendous encouragement to have so many people saying, ‘We need you. We need you back. We need our fighter.’ ”

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