💥 Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is in open war with prominent Latino lawmakers, and his potential 2028 rivals for president are taking advantage.

• Beshear, as head of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), has resisted pressure from Latino leaders to invest heavily in Gina Hinojosa's campaign for Texas governor, opting to focus on races in other states.
• In response, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore have given money to Hinojosa's bid to unseat Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) — and earned praise from Latino lawmakers.

🤺 Why it matters: The back-and-forth amounts to one of the first fights of the 2028 Democratic primary, against the backdrop of the party's desperation to reverse the GOP's recent gains among Latino voters.

• 💪 Latino leaders are trying to flex their political muscle, fueled in part by Democrats' new primary schedule, which has Nevada and New Mexico — and their large Latino populations — the second and fourth states to vote in the nominating contest.

Driving the news: In recent weeks Latino leaders have gone public in their pressure campaign to push Beshear to invest $10 million in Texas, as polls have shown Hinojosa ahead or within the polls' margin of error.

• Beshear, mindful of how expensive it is to campaign statewide in Texas and the DGA's limited resources, resisted and instead focused the committee's resources on governor's races in critical states like Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Ohio.

💰 Pritzker, a potential 2028 rival to Beshear who already had donated $200,000 to Hinojosa's campaign, then publicly announced he was donating an additional $1 million to Hinojosa. That won the Illinois governor, a billionaire who has strategically spread some of his personal wealth across the party, some fans.

• "When Latino leaders asked for the cavalry, JB Pritzker sent it, putting $1.2 million behind Gina Hinojosa because he knows the race is winnable," Cristóbal Alex, board chair of the Latino Victory Fund, told Axios.
• Alex noted that Pritzker, who hosted a fundraiser for the Latino Victory Fund, has "put his resources and his time into Hispanic candidates and voters around the country."

Newsom, meanwhile, sent a fundraising email that brought in $75,000 for Hinojosa.

• Moore privately told the DGA to reallocate $100,000 from his reelection campaign to Texas, two Democratic officials told Axios.
• Beshear, who personally donated $25,000 to Hinojosa's campaign, ultimately announced the DGA would give her team $1 million — 10% of the original ask and a small commitment for a big state like Texas. The money arrived this past week, according to a source familiar with the situation.

😡 The intrigue: Several Latino leaders and lawmakers were furious that Beshear didn't attend a Zoom call with them and the DGA on Oct. 7 to discuss the Texas race.

• "It just baffles me that someone who was even thinking of 2028 would disrespect us and not meet," Rep. Silvia Garcia (D-Texas) told Axios, noting that seven Latino members of Congress were on the call. "Just freaking five minutes on a Zoom … and excuse yourself."
• "I really felt like he disrespected the group, and that he is going to have a serious Latino problem if he doesn't know how to do the outreach and the communication that's going to need to get us to the White House."
• Beshear's critics note he had time this fall for a book tour when, they argue, he could have been raising more money for the DGA.

🤔 The other side: Several Democrats told Axios that they believe the DGA made the right strategic decision to send money to other states.

• Some of the Latino leaders pressuring Beshear also were consultants who stood to make money if he invested heavily in Texas.
• Many Latino leaders claim they speak for Latino voters, but have been proved wrong in recent elections, as Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and others have pointed out.
• Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona are swing states likely to be more critical than Texas for a Democrat to get 270 Electoral College votes in 2028.

What they're saying: DGA communications director Sam Newton told Axios: "Unfortunately for the D.C. staffers who are personally obsessed with 2028 and manufacturing Democratic infighting, the DGA and our chair Gov. Beshear, along with all of our Democratic governors, remain solely focused on beating Trump and Republicans to win as many of our high-stakes 36 races for governor as possible."

The bottom line: Even some Democrats who think the DGA made the right financial decision not to invest heavily in Texas think Beshear mishandled the politics of the situation.

• If he can't handle the politics of being DGA chair, they argue, how could he handle a presidential campaign, and potentially the White House?

Read more.

— Alex Thompson

Our weekly look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders are up to:

• 💵 Newsom traveled to New Hampshire this weekend after raising $526,000 for that state's Democratic Party through his email list, his team told Politico. He drew enthusiastic crowds — and some skepticism from some prominent Democrats there.
• New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned with Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan this week and transferred $1 million to his campaign.
• AOC also told MS Now, "I think that one of the erroneous takeaways from 2024 was that really embracing and celebrating the rich diversity of our country is a political liability, and I couldn't disagree with that more."
• 🇮🇱 Asked by Fox News if he thinks Iran or Israel is a bigger threat to the U.S., former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that "Iran is our enemy, Israel is not. They're an ally, so that's pretty clear to me." (El-Sayed has dodged that question on the campaign trail.)
• Buttigieg, asked by CNN's Kasie Hunt whether he's a moderate Democrat, said, "I try not to lean too much into one label or another." He also said he'd be "surprised" if anyone who labeled themself a socialist became a strong national candidate. Watch the full interview here.
• 🗺️ Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced campaign stops starting this week in Nevada, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Georgia, along with a virtual event for Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon of Florida. Some donors and strategists teed off on Harris's strategic choices in 2026, with one telling Politico it was a "wasted year" for Harris.
• Harris traveled to South Korea and criticized former President Biden's policies on Israel and Gaza. "We should have acted sooner and more forcefully," she said, to stop Israel's "horrific conduct."
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared with Biden at an annual fundraiser for Philadelphia's Democratic City Committee. Unlike in past years, the event was closed to the press, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
• 🍽️ New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker rallied with members of Nevada's Culinary Union and showed off some of his Spanish. "¿Como se dice en español?" ("How do you say it in Spanish?") and added "Arriba!," KSNV reported. Noting some of his family's ties to the state, he said he considers Nevada "like a second home."
• 🌵 Gallego told the Arizona Republic that he hasn't talked with fellow Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly about a potential 2028 showdown in the presidential primary. "We're probably gonna just, like, dance around it forever. Until, you know, one of us blinks first. And then we'll have a conversation," Gallego said. "Come on, politicians are passive-aggressive. You know how that's gonna end up."
• Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff pledged he will serve a full six-year term if he wins reelection. "I have zero interest in running for president. I'm not running for president. I'm running for reelection to the Senate," he said at a debate Tuesday.
• 🥷 California Rep. Ro Khanna tried to pick a fight with Newsom over the California "wealth tax" propositions on the ballot next month. Newsom opposes the proposed billionaire tax.

💡 When Newsom was a young man, he found inspiration in self-help entrepreneur Tony Robbins.

📖 In his recent memoir, Newsom recounts buying Robbins' tapes and notes Robbins' "mighty jaw and mighty hands.… His voice was mighty, too, a bass made deeper by a benign tumor on his pituitary gland."

• "After a week or two of listening, his preaching found ground inside my head," Newsom wrote. A few of Robbins' lines stuck with him.
• "Your past does not equal your future."
• "There's the business you're in, and the business you're becoming."
• "The secret to living is giving."

🙄 Newsom found wisdom in Robbins even as he knew some people rolled their eyes at Robbins and such advice.

• "Skeptics were dismissing the 'Robbins Success System' as … the creed of a new pop psychology," he wrote.
• "But Robbins had been a janitor in a high-rise building in Glendale [California] only a decade before, and the examples he brought to the page, of people constantly under-aiming their potential, reminded me of me. So I took some of the principles and jargon that made sense to me — stretch goals, inspiration and desperation both lead to a path — and put them to work."