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2028

Axios 2028

Democrats fighting over their strategy and leadership for 2028 are locked in on savaging — or saving — the one man with a title and power: DNC chair Ken Martin.

Why it matters: Martin is facing a growing crisis of confidence over the Democratic National Committee's bungled autopsy of the 2024 election and its financial struggles. This is the biggest, earliest test of the party's top brass heading into '28.

So far, Martin has staved off a revolt among DNC members at a time when they're setting the calendar for the 2028 presidential primary — a key factor in determining the party's next nominee. 

In fact, as some members of Congress and Democratic strategists are calling for Martin to resign, key DNC members are rallying to his defense.

Zoom in: The DNC's powerful rules and bylaws committee met at a D.C. hotel this week to hear the pitches of a dozen states that want to go early in the upcoming primary.

The delicacy of Martin's position was apparent: He skipped the committee's public meeting, though he did quietly visit the hotel for some private conversations.

Since Martin released — and disavowed — an incomplete autopsy of the 2024 election this month, some Democratic operatives have argued that he lacks the credibility to manage key parts of the upcoming Democratic presidential contest. 

The DNC sets the primary calendar and debate process, and builds up the party's infrastructure for the eventual nominee to inherit.  

"If people can't trust the DNC, what is going to happen is they're going to think the process is rigged against their candidate," said influential "Pod Save America" co-host Dan Pfeiffer on a podcast.

"The way that Ken Martin has handled this, he has made it very hard for people to trust the DNC."

DNC members gathering this week struck a very different tone: They told Axios they're sticking with Martin.

"There is huge support, huge support, at this committee and the party as a whole for Ken Martin," said Stuart Appelbaum, a member of the rules and bylaws committee.

Ray Buckley, leader of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, slammed Martin's critics on social media: "What some of the folks that are online might not understand is that the chair works for the DNC members, and the DNC membership to this day still overwhelmingly supports Ken."

Even a DNC member who had publicly pushed Martin to release the autopsy earlier, Vinod Thomas, said he still backs him.

"Ken is a reform-minded, progressive leader. If he is forced out, he is likely to be replaced by someone who is far more aligned with insiders, consultants and donor networks," he told us in an email.

Between the lines: It's not surprising that DNC members, including those involved in state parties, are coming to Martin's defense.

Martin previously led the Association of State Democratic Committees, and since becoming DNC chair, he's boosted funding for state parties.

Reality check: But some Democrats think Martin isn't out of the woods yet. If the party's congressional leaders signal they want him out — or the financial picture for the DNC significantly worsens — they believe he could be pressured to leave.

Removing Martin would require at least "a majority vote" of the DNC's 400-some members, according to the party's bylaws.

Zoom out: Beyond the drama over Martin, this week's meetings offered a glimpse of the competing visions that could shape the Democratic Party's future.

The arguments that state parties made in hopes of voting first in the 2028 primary reflected the party's larger debates over race, class, and which voters Democrats should prioritize in the next presidential election.

States such as Nevada and New Mexico highlighted their significant Latino populations to stress the need for Democrats to recapture more of a constituency that drifted to the right in 2024.

Others, such as South Carolina, emphasized their large Black populations that have long been Democrats' most loyal voters.

Meanwhile, states such as Tennessee stressed being part of Appalachia, where the Democratic Party was once strong — and, they argued, could be again.

State officials did their own lobbying to host early primaries. 

Nevada Democrats held a private reception for those on the DNC's rules and bylaws panel, with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. New Hampshire and Michigan Democrats gave them goodie bags. 

Donna Brazile, a longtime DNC member, told us that when it came to the state party presentations, "seven out of 12 did exceedingly well."

She also signaled an openness to elevating battleground states: "I think about one thing, and that is: How do you get to 270 electoral votes?"

Dems' civil war over party chair hangs over 2028 plans

DNC Chair Martin is facing a growing crisis of confidence within the party's ecosystem.

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2026 midterm elections

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2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

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President Trump's medical checkups have turned into mini dramas pitting the public's right to know against a public figure's medical privacy — with a heavy overlay of political intrigue.

The big picture: The White House added another twist late Friday night by releasing a three-page memo summarizing Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center the prior Tuesday that concluded he was "in excellent health" and "fully fit" to carry out all of his duties.

It took three days to release the findings, which arrived at 10:44pm ET on a Friday night.

And while they were more comprehensive than some past readouts, the memo from White House physician Sean Barbabella didn't put to rest persistent questions about apparent bruising on Trump's hands, swollen ankles and his alertness during some public events.

What's inside: The memo said Trump, who turns 80 in two weeks, demonstrated "strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function."

It again attributed the bruising of his hands to frequent handshaking and aspirin therapy and noted "slight lower leg swelling" it characterized as improved from last year.

It said an AI-enhanced electrocardiogram estimated his cardiac age "to be approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age."

Trump was counseled to take low-dose aspirin, increase physical activity and lose weight, which the report put at 238 pounds — 14 pounds more than an April 2025 physical.

The White House said the report reflected test results from the past year and consultations with 22 specialists.

Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency last year after experiencing mild swelling in his lower legs.

The intrigue: Jonathan Reiner, former Vice President Dick Cheney's heart doctor, wrote on X that the report left unanswered questions, including why there have been repeated CT scans of the heart during his checkups and whether the medical team addressed his daytime fatigue and sleepiness.

Meanwhile, there was a flurry of speculation on social media about other findings on the report, with some clinicians noting that describing a patient being younger in cardiac age isn't a proper diagnostic finding.

"The last line of all these notes always say the same thing, which is that upon examination and evaluation of the patient, the president is deemed fit for service," Reiner told CNN on Friday. "This report would speak to that conclusion. There are other things that it misses."

The visit was Trump's fourth publicly acknowledged medical checkup of his second term — one he characterized in a Truth Social post as a "6 month physical."

Bob Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, noted the standard is to have a physical every year.

"I think it's quite unusual for someone ... who doesn't have chronic problems that require more frequent monitoring to come in more often than every year," Wachter said.

He said Trump "appears to be quite healthy from a cardiovascular standpoint" but questioned why someone with a healthy heart who is apparently at low risk for a stroke or other vascular event needs to be on aspirin.

Wachter also keyed in on the part of the report showing Trump is taking two cholesterol medications, questioning whether that might be "overkill" when the results of his bloodwork were good.

The White House didn't respond to follow-up questions about the readout.

Trump on Sunday bragged about how he'd aced a cognitive test during the checkup.

Presidents have access to comprehensive medical care at the White House, with visits to Walter Reed usually reserved for annual physicals and screenings like CT and MRI scans.

The visits are usually followed by a memo from the White House physician, but it's up to the president how much, if anything, to disclose.

"It's not legally required," said Sara Rosenthal, a bioethicist at the University of Kentucky.

Questions about Trump's health began during his first presidential campaign, when he offered little information about his health other than a note from his then-doctor that claimed he'd be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." The doctor later said Trump dictated the letter.

He promised to release his medical records during the 2024 presidential campaign, but instead became a historical outlier among presidential candidates by not doing so.

He later became the oldest president ever inaugurated, after repeatedly mocking former President Biden's fitness and age.

Go deeper: What Trump's saying about his cognitive test results

What Trump's saying about his cognitive test results

Trump health readout leaves key blanks unfilled

The medical report didn't put to rest questions about bruising on Trump's hands, swollen ankles and his alertness.

Trump in the Oval Office Oct. 16. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Donald Trump

The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

Many former Biden aides think Jill Biden's new book is rewriting history, unhelpful to the Democratic Party and tone-deaf, they told Axios in interviews this week.

The backlash comes as excerpts from the book — "View from the West Wing: A Memoir" — appeared online and the former first lady sat for her first interview since her husband left office in January 2025.

Why it matters: Most Democratic Party leaders don't want to talk about Joe Biden's presidency, but the Bidens are making that difficult. Both are writing books and the former president plans to make campaign stops ahead of the November midterms.

State of play: Jill Biden's book opens up a wound for many Democrats who believe the Bidens damaged their credibility with voters by insisting Joe Biden was fit enough to run for reelection in 2024 when he wasn't, and by pushing the party to publicly defend his fitness.

Many Democrats feel the Bidens have yet to explain themselves, and that Jill Biden's new book is part of a larger pattern of looking for excuses and other people to blame.

What they're saying: Several Biden aides — including some of the most loyal ones — are fuming about the former first lady's reemergence.

One former Biden official said: "I just wish they would give some more time and space and let people move on. It all feels so disingenuous."

Another said: "The throughline between her book and [Kamala] Harris' is that they blame everyone but themselves for the loss."

A former senior Biden official added: "President Biden actually has a legacy that is impactful and should be celebrated at some point — getting us through the pandemic and passing life-changing bills. Why does he keep stepping on it himself?"

A former Biden campaign aide said: "It's just so selfish. The Bidens preached selflessness and service above all — and every decision they've made since he decided to run for reelection has been about themselves. It's also ironic — the only people undermining President Biden's legacy are the people closest to him."

Even former spokesperson Andrew Bates — one of Biden's most aggressive defenders — told the New York Post he doesn't think the book will affect the upcoming midterms, but that he's still angry they lost the 2024 election and he doesn't see "why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly reopened right now."

Driving the news: Former Biden aides are particularly incensed and dubious of the former first lady's version of events when it came to Joe Biden's aging and the debate that led him to exit the campaign.

Jill Biden says now that she was "frightened" watching her husband's disastrous debate against Donald Trump, and writes in the book that she thought to herself: "Is this a stroke? I felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching. Has he been drugged?"

After the debate, however, she didn't appear so worried and joined President Biden at a campaign rally, and a stop at a Waffle House, then introduced him at a rally the next day after an overnight flight.

Her latest comments also are at odds with what Joe Biden's top aides said at the time and since: that the debate went badly, but the media and the Democratic Party overreacted.

Other former Biden aides fumed that she was simultaneously insisting her husband had not declined, while also suggesting she may have missed it.

"Had he grown too old for the job and I hadn't noticed? I didn't think so, but could I be objective enough to be sure?" she writes in the new book.

Ex-Biden aides give Jill's new book a frosty review

The book opens up a wound for many Democrats who believe the Bidens damaged their credibility with voters.

Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

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The AI boom is pushing companies across the economy — from tech giants to automakers — deep into the energy business.

Why it matters: The scramble for electricity has become the gold rush beneath the AI boom, creating enormous financial value and enormous risk if demand falls short.

Driving the news: Electricity — long treated as a cheap, abundant commodity — is suddenly emerging as one of the most valuable strategic assets in business.

"Everyone to some extent is either dependent on energy as a core input or they see energy as a huge opportunity," said Brian Janous, who was Microsoft's first energy hire 15 years ago and is now co-founder of data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure.

The latest: Ford unveiled earlier this month its expansion into energy storage for data centers and other large power users.

It launched a new subsidiary called Ford Energy in response to what it calls "the massive demand for domestic energy storage."

Follow the money: Investors are increasingly rewarding companies pivoting to — or doubling down on — the power behind the AI boom. A few recent highlights:

Ford's stock price rose to its highest level in three years after its rollout of the $2 billion energy business.

Bloom Energy, long seen as a niche energy player whose tech can deliver on-site power fast, saw its stock price skyrocket more than 1,200% over the past year.

Fervo Energy, a geothermal startup once viewed as speculative climate tech, surged after going public earlier this month as Wall Street hunts for new electricity sources to feed data centers.

GE Vernova booked $2.4 billion in electric equipment orders for data centers in the first quarter alone, more than it made all of last year in equivalent sales. Its stock has gone up about 60% this year.

"The energy behind the [artificial] intelligence is invisible to most people, but it's enormous," said Andy Power, president and CEO of Digital Realty, one of the world's largest and most established data center companies.

"But this isn't new for those of us who've been building digital infrastructure for more than 20 years," Power said in a statement to Axios. "What's new is the pace. Utilities are inundated with applications for power and doing triage on who's real."

Reality check: Beneath the surging stock prices, trouble is mounting. Opposition to data centers is intensifying rapidly, and some of the biggest projects may never come to fruition.

"A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money in this space," Janous said — not because of a lack of demand, but because so many mega projects are chasing that demand.

He pointed to a troubled project in Texas that bills itself as the largest data center proposal in the world and another proposal in Utah by celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary.

Friction point: The number of data centers canceled after pushback reached a record high in the first quarter of this year, according to data by Heatmap Pro.

The canceled projects accounted for more than $40 billion in investment, the analysis found.

"It's getting a lot worse," Janous said about the opposition, sounding far more negative than he did in an Axios interview from February. He cited community concerns about water use, air pollution and noise as top worries.

Between the lines: Every gold rush creates problems — and new businesses. The AI power boom is now spawning a generation of startups building products for data centers, some of which could help address community concerns.

How it works: Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta are teaming up with nonprofit investor Elemental Impact to accelerate new technologies using data centers as test cases.

Those technologies include advanced cooling, energy storage and low-carbon building materials.

What we're watching: If these startups scale, some could help address concerns surrounding data centers, particularly around water use and air pollution.

The bottom line: For decades, energy was an input. In the AI era, it's becoming the product.

AI is turning energy into the hottest business in America

The scramble for electricity has become the gold rush beneath the AI boom.

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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

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Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

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From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

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Texas has gained more than 2.5 million new residents since 2020 — roughly the entire population of New Mexico — reshaping the electorate and injecting new uncertainty into this year's marquee Senate race. 

Why it matters: Republican Ken Paxton is favored to defeat Democrat James Talarico in November, but the influx of new arrivals — along with fading Latino support for President Trump and booming exurban counties — has scrambled the political math in typically red Texas.

By the numbers: Texas added nearly 400,000 residents in 2025, the most of any state, bringing its population to 31.7 million, according to an Axios review of U.S. Census data analyzed by Mendoza Law Firm. 

Since 2020, Texas has seen about 2.6 million new residents, also more than any other state, with more than two-thirds of that growth coming from people moving from elsewhere in the U.S. or abroad. 

That five-year gain is larger than New Mexico's entire population.

Zoom in: The big unknown is which party the new arrivals favor. Signals are mixed.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, tells Axios that newcomers tend to be less tied to Texas' long-standing political patterns.

That gives Democrats more persuadable voters than they had when the electorate was more stable and Republicans had a stronger hold on it.

Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, tells Axios that new residents often fall into two broad camps: "economic migrants" and "political refugees." 

The first group moved for jobs, lower living costs or family and are more politically mixed. The political types often fled liberal states for lower taxes and more conservative politics.

Data from the moving firm HireAHelper provides a snapshot of where new Texans are coming from. Of 265,000 out-of-state moves to Texas between June 2024 and May 2025, 14% came from California, 9% from Florida and 4.5% from Colorado.

Between the lines: What makes 2026 structurally different from prior cycles is the sheer volume of demographic change. 

Five of the nation's top 10 fastest-growing cities since 2020 are in Texas, including Georgetown (up 58.5%), Leander (53.8%), Kyle (53%) and Hutto (66.9%). These communities, filled with transplants, represent a new and genuinely unpredictable electorate.

Republicans have controlled Texas with overwhelming rural margins, strong suburban support and recent gains with Latino voters. Each of those groups is now more volatile.

Fast-growing exurbs are blurring Texas' old urban-suburban-rural divide, and rapidly growing communities don't share the political background of old Texas.

The migration churn matters even more because Latino voters — another key piece of Texas' changing electorate — are showing signs of moving away from Trump.

In a mid-April Texas Public Opinion Research poll of a hypothetical general election matchup, Talarico led Paxton by 27 points among Latino voters and 25 points among independents.

President Trump's disapproval has climbed to 67% among Latino voters in Texas, and Democrats hold a 54%-to-28% generic House ballot advantage among Latinos in the state, a recent UnidosUS/BSP Research/Shaw & Co. poll found. 

Trump won 55% of Latino voters in Texas in 2024, according to Texas exit polls cited by the Texas Politics Project.

Yes, but: Texas has fooled Democrats before.

No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994, and Paxton has already won three statewide general elections.

Republicans still have the state's stronger turnout machine, and Democrats have repeatedly underperformed in the urban areas where they need to run up margins, Rottinghaus said.

Flashback: Beto O'Rourke came within 3 points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 — another anti-Trump cycle. 

Democrats say demographic change and softer Latino support for Republicans have improved their odds. 

Paxton carries years of legal and ethical baggage, but Talarico also has vulnerabilities in a state that still leans conservative, including past comments on religion and his progressive profile Republicans will target.

The bottom line: Texas isn't suddenly blue. 

But it is bigger, newer and less predictable — and that's enough to make Paxton's Senate race uncomfortable for Republicans.

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