⚡️ Liberal media, long dominated by a few big national players such as New York Times columnists, is splintering into countless micro-factions, much like the early MAGA movement.

Why it matters: Gone are the days of simply sucking up to the Times or Rachel Maddow. Now, potential 2028 contenders need to navigate a multi-layered media ecosystem controlled by big players and solo operators with big audiences.

• An explosion of new voices has diluted the power of legacy pundits and MS NOW stars.

We're here to guide you through the liberal version of MAGA's surge-and-splinter:

• The progressive media bubble has its star shows, such as "Pod Save America," "The Daily Show," "The Breakfast Club" and "The Ezra Klein Show."
• Beyond them, however, is a fast-growing progressive sphere that aspiring White House candidates are trying to navigate.

State of play: This is how many 2028ers see the landscape of progressive media, according to conversations with several aides to possible contenders.

😍 1. The Partisans

Shows such as "MeidasTouch" and "No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen" are seen as safe spaces for Democratic candidates to get their messages out to millions of Democratic-leaning viewers with little adversarial pushback.

• "There's kind of this whole Rolodex of influencers who are even friendlier than MS Now," said Jesse Lehrich, a Democratic strategist who tracks likely presidential candidates' media appearances.

🥊 2. The Resistance

These shows and influencers are the most strident anti-Trump voices in the party. They'll take fellow Democrats to task if they sense them becoming squishy on opposing the Trump administration.

• It includes the "I've Had It" podcast hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan. Heather Cox Richardson's Substack is also in this group. They've become go-to places for Democrats to prove their resistance bona fides during Trump 2.0.
• The interviews aren't always friendly. Some potential 2028 candidates — former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel comes to mind — have been blasted on "I've Had It" when breaking from orthodoxy.

👑 3. The Elites

Traditional outlets such as MS NOW, the New York Times opinion pages, and magazines including The Atlantic and The New Yorker remain go-to's in swaying elite discourse — donors, powerbrokers and other thought leaders.

🖖 4. The Center Left

For Democrats looking to distance themselves from left-wing parts of their party, there are Substackers such as Matt Yglesias and organizations built by former Republicans including The Bulwark, which has popular shows with people such as Tim Miller, a former communications director for Jeb Bush and vocal Trump critic.

👈 5. The Left Wing

This bubble has shifted dramatically since 2020, when many Bernie Sanders-friendly voices — sometimes referred to as "the dirtbag left" — dominated.

• The space in 2026 is largely occupied by outlets and personalities with a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel focus such as Medhi Hasan's Zeteo, Ryan Grim's Drop Site newsletter and Hasan Piker, a streamer with 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
• Some former pro-Sanders voices have drifted right, while others such as "The Adam Friedland Show" have pitched potential 2028 Democrats to appear as a way to reach young men, our sources told us.

Zoom in: Strategists and some candidates say the booming number of Democrat-friendly outlets has made it imperative for a candidate — or possible candidate — to be able to go everywhere.

• New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a possible 2028 contender, told Axios: "I'm going to continue to go on not just political podcasts, but everything from health and wellness podcasts all the way to sports podcasts. I'm going to continue to do as many as I possibly can."
• Even so, many possible candidates have stayed away from the left-wing sphere. Several center-left voices have become particularly cozy with candidates such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Read more.

— Alex Thompson, Holly Otterbein

💡 Nearly three years after the GOP's Project 2025 laid out a game plan for what would be the second Trump administration, a new policy group called Project 2029 has named an executive director and is preparing for a Democrat to win the White House in 2028.

• Chad Maisel, who worked at the Biden White House's Domestic Policy Council and for New Jersey Sen. Booker, will lead Project 2029, which 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 policies they'll embrace.

• "There's a recognition from the last decade-plus that the same old playbook isn't working," Maisel told us. "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.

The group says it already has enlisted 200 people for its working groups but is keeping the participants secret unless they write the proposals.

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.

Read more.

— Alex Thompson

A look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders have been up to:

• Shapiro's breakneck tour for his new book, "Where We Keep the Light," included stops in four cities and interviews with nine TV shows and four podcasts. On FOX News' "Special Report with Bret Baier," Shapiro broke with Philadelphia's progressive district attorney Larry Krasner, calling the prosecutor's rhetoric about hunting down ICE agents like Nazis "abhorrent."
• Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy announced he's releasing a book, "Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America." He said it's about "the underlying spiritual sickness in our nation" that fueled President Trump's rise. It's due out in May.
• New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a meeting with New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, something a politician might do ahead of running for Senate instead of president in 2028. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), currently 75, will be up for reelection then, though he hasn't said whether he'll seek a sixth term.
• Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared on "I've Had It," and influential host Jennifer Welch gave him a soft endorsement for president. "Right now, of the names that are out there, I'm going JB Pritzker," she said.
• Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock flew to Minnesota to visit Alex Pretti's memorial and meet with faith leaders.
• California Rep. Ro Khanna also went to Minnesota, saying Trump's surge there has been "an assault on Americans as well as immigrants."
• Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly touted that he raised $13 million in total from his two PACs in the last quarter of 2025. The retired Navy captain's team told us nearly 60% of online donors to his campaign were first-time contributors, the latest sign he's capitalized on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's efforts to demote him.
• Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg endorsed his "friend" Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar's campaign for governor, a full-circle moment after the two clashed intensely in the 2020 presidential primary. Buttigieg also threw his support to Bob Brooks, a Bernie Sanders-backed candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom displayed his knack for garnering press coverage by filing a civil rights complaint against Dr. Mehmet Oz over his video blaming health care fraud on "the Russian Armenian mafia." Newsom also deployed an emergency response team to help winter storm recovery in deep-red Tennessee.
• Newsom also got the Vogue treatment with a flattering Annie Leibovitz photo shoot.
• Maryland Gov. Wes Moore appeared on "The Breakfast Club" and "The Press Box" podcast, where he said "Never Change" and "U Don't Know" are among his favorite Jay-Z songs. Moore will headline a CBS town hall Feb. 15.

🐝 Democrats are buzzing about Shapiro's new memoir, "Where We Keep the Light." So, after uploading a PDF of the text, we asked Chat GPT to write a New Yorker-style review, with a focus on prose and literary qualities. The result:

• "That prosecutorial voice — confident, linear, resistant to ambiguity — is the book's dominant sound," ChatGPT concluded.
• 📝 "Shapiro is at his most characteristic when he writes in triads and clipped imperatives — language built for breath and cadence, the kind you can imagine being underlined on a note card. 'Listen, feel, do' he instructs at one point, compressing a whole governing philosophy into three blunt verbs."
• With a subtle jab only a New Yorker reader could love, it added: "Even the jokes tend toward the utilitarian."

— Alex Thompson