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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 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 pointed to a healthy economy, the party seemed to sorely underestimate 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 over the next decade and basically writes Immigration and Customs Enforcement a blank check 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. In an NBC News poll 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 at each stop.

Bush might have lost by about 5 percentage points 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.

And from the vantage point of late 2025, it’s........

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