This summer, most of the conversation about the future of the Democratic Party has been about the struggle between the upstart Democratic Socialist Party and the Democratic establishment. But as the midterms near, it may be the party’s renewed southward tilt that is the big development this year.
Generally speaking, Democratic candidates are polling well in races across the country. But it’s worth noting that Democratic candidates in the South are doing as well, or arguably better, than in the Midwestern states that were known as the Blue Wall, until President Donald Trump demolished the wall in 2026.
In U.S. Senate races, Sen. John Ossoff and former Gov. Roy Cooper have substantial leads in Georgia and North Carolina, and state Rep. James Talarico has a much narrower lead in most polls in Texas. Meanwhile, Democrats have a solid lead in Ohio, but trail in Michigan.
Moreover, the candidate who is setting the tone for the party nationally is Ossoff. In 2028, you can expect to see lots of copycat 40-second rally clips like the ones that have gone viral for Ossoff, whatever Ossoff himself decides to do that year. His blistering denunciation of Trump, capped off by a cheeky reference to Trump aide Natalie Harp, at a rally Sunday was a classic example of the way the Democratic incumbent knows how to use those 40 seconds to maximum effect.
You don’t hear as much about Cooper, but if he wins the race in North Carolina, he will become, as a former governor and a senator, a de facto big deal and a presidential possibility.
The North Carolina race helps explain why Democrats appear to be on the rebound. Some early polling showed Cooper would have led Sen. Thom Tillis, if the frequent Republican Trump critic had not decided to call it quits. But for a multitude of reasons, that would have been a much tougher race than the one in which Cooper’s opponent is Michael Whatley, the Trump-endorsed former Republican National Committee chairman. Trump’s endorsement hasn’t done the trick for U.S. Rep. Mike Collins in Georgia, either.
Nor has Trump’s drive to redraw congressional maps to maximize the number of Republican districts turned out exactly as he might have hoped. Running in a redrawn district in Tennessee, Rep. Andy Ogles, one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters in Congress, was defeated in a Republican primary by former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, who has already called for an end to the war in Iran and made it clear he doesn’t think affordability is a joke. In Alabama, the turnout for a special primary to choose candidates for redrawn districts was lower than a good many high school football games in that state.
Over the weekend, this southward tilt manifested itself in institutional form when the Democratic National Committee approved a 2028 calendar which gives South Carolina first-in-the-nation status in that year’s presidential primaries. In an effort to bring more diversity to the process, the party chose the Palmetto State to begin the process on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1, New Hampshire on Feb. 8, New Mexico on Feb. 15, Michigan on Feb. 22 and Virginia on (it’s a leap year) Feb. 29. Amid all this diversity, African-American voters are still the most vital to the party, which explains the party’s choice of South Carolina.
Getting the national attention that a presidential campaign brings will give Democrats in the region a boost, but in many ways the most important races this year are those for state legislative seats, in places where they have sometimes looked like they were slated for extinction. Until they begin to win more of those races, the southward tilt will only be a head fake.
