Scoop: Democrats' Project 2029 names leader
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Project 2029, a new policy group preparing for a Democrat to win the White House in 2028, has named an executive director and plans to put out its first policy ideas in March, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Project 2029 is one of several liberal groups already battling over who will staff the next Democratic administration and what policy ideas they'll embrace.
- Democrats are copying similar efforts by conservatives during the Biden presidency, such as Project 2025 and America First Legal that many believe enabled the Trump administration to hit the ground running in his second term with a flurry of executive actions.
Driving the news: Chad Maisel, who worked at the Biden White House's Domestic Policy Council and for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, will lead Project 2029.
- "There's a recognition from the last decade-plus that the same old playbook isn't working," Maisel told Axios. "Project 2029 will put forward an agenda that is bigger and bolder than what people have been offered before."
- Maisel said the group will not be center-left or left-wing but will publish ideas from across the Democratic Party.
- Like the pro-Trump Project 2025 before it, Project 2029 plans to release dozens of policy proposals and ultimately compile them into one large book as a blueprint for the next Democratic president.
What's next: The group says it already has enlisted 200 people for its working groups but is keeping the participants secret unless they write the proposals.
- Project 2029 plans to announce an advisory committee in the coming weeks.
- The group initially was part of the policy quarterly Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, but decided last October that it would operate separately (Andrei Cherny, the former president of the journal, now chairs Project 2029).
Zoom out: Project 2029 isn't alone in preparing for the next Democratic White House.
- Searchlight Institute launched last year with the goal of pushing the Democratic Party to reject some progressive positions that group believes have alienated voters.
- Larger, more established think tanks such as The Roosevelt Institute and The Center for American Progress also have their own efforts to try and influence the next Democratic president.
The other side: Trump campaign leaders were angry about Project 2025 because it embraced some policies that were politically unpopular and that Donald Trump didn't support.
- Project 2025, however, wound up being a reliable roadmap for a lot of Trump's second-term actions on issues including immigration, the Justice Department and DEI.
- Republicans could use Project 2029 to attack the next Democratic nominee, much as Democrats attacked Trump over Project 2025.
