{"id":4760,"date":"2026-07-13T05:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T00:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4760"},"modified":"2026-07-13T05:27:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T00:27:25","slug":"shapiro-wants-a-dem-fight-in-2028-so-far-without-leading-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4760","title":{"rendered":"Shapiro wants a Dem fight in 2028 \u2014 so far, without leading it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/-RRAM-jINIF4OoFqILwcLjaE_v8=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/10\/1783708944662.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/04\/02\/josh-shapiro-fundraising-pennsylvania\" target=\"_blank\">Josh Shapiro<\/a> says the 2028 presidential race should be a once-in-a-generation battle over the Democratic Party&#8217;s core identity. But so far, he isn&#8217;t picking up his sword to fight.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As progressives and socialists have won <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/24\/mamdani-lander-valdez-chevalier-espaillat-goldman\" target=\"_blank\">primary<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/local\/philadelphia\/2026\/05\/20\/pennsylvania-primary-election-results-chris-rabb-district-3\" target=\"_blank\">after<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/01\/melat-kiros-colorado-degette-democrats-reaction\" target=\"_blank\">primary<\/a> in recent weeks, the more moderate Shapiro often has<strong> <\/strong>been gun-shy about criticizing the left, taking more of a we&#8217;re-all-in-this-together approach.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why it matters:<\/strong> Many center-left Democrats are looking for a national leader to go toe to toe with the party&#8217;s rising socialist wing. For now at least, that&#8217;s not Shapiro.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>The potential 2028 contender&#8217;s restraint underscores a defining trait: He picks his spots and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/2025\/12\/josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-trump-president-election\/684991\/\" target=\"_blank\">rarely<\/a> acts impulsively.<\/li>\n<li>His moves also suggest he doesn&#8217;t want to completely alienate the left. He&#8217;s sought to court progressives at times \u2014 implicitly acknowledging the movement&#8217;s growing power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Driving the news: <\/strong>Shapiro repeatedly has said that Democrats need to have an ideological clash as they did in 1992, when they nominated Bill Clinton, a Southern moderate who went on to defeat President George H.W. Bush.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;What our party has to go through that will be very healthy, and something we&#8217;ve not really done since the 1992 election cycle, is to have a battle over what we believe in,&#8221; Shapiro <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/07\/05\/politics\/video\/shapiro-america-250-sotu\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a> CNN&#8217;s Dana Bash recently.<\/li>\n<li>He made the same argument in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2026\/05\/27\/josh-shapiro-antisemitism-2028-democrats-00936671\" target=\"_blank\">interview<\/a> with Politico&#8217;s Jonathan Martin, telling him, &#8220;We are now poised as a party to have what we haven&#8217;t really had for the last 30 years, and that is a big ideological debate,&#8221; noting, &#8220;the last time our party had a big ideological battle \u2026 was 1992.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>But as much as Shapiro <\/strong>sounds as if he&#8217;s itching for a fight, he&#8217;s often pulling punches.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This month, he struck a positive note on MS Now&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YK3bG7BrknQ\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Morning Joe&#8221;<\/a> when asked about democratic socialists romping in recent primaries.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;A through-line is that there is real passion in the electorate&#8221; to &#8220;elect people who can be a check on Donald Trump&#8217;s chaos and cruelty and corruption,&#8221; Shapiro said.<\/li>\n<li>He added that voters have &#8220;a lot of pain inflicted by this president and his enablers ripping away health care here in Pennsylvania from a half a million people, ripping away food assistance.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Shapiro, 53, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2026\/05\/27\/josh-shapiro-antisemitism-2028-democrats-00936671\" target=\"_blank\">resisted<\/a> <\/strong>reporters&#8217; efforts to identify him as either a &#8220;moderate&#8221; or &#8220;progressive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On the podcast &#8220;The Press Box,&#8221; he <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/4Me9Sj6TCMzIjhYWl9Puwm\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> Democrats eventually &#8220;have to coalesce around policies that maybe aren&#8217;t left-wing or center or center-left or whatever \u2014 it&#8217;s a little piece of lots of different things.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>After interviewing Shapiro, &#8220;Press Box&#8221; host Joel Anderson said Shapiro is &#8220;not going to get dragged into dissing like the Mamdani wing of the Democrats. I think that&#8217;s an \u2026 older type of politician that is going to be lashing out.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Shapiro&#8217;s posture is markedly different<\/strong> from more combative moderates in his party such as New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, whose response to democratic socialists&#8217; recent victories has been to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/06\/24\/politics\/mamdani-house-democrats-primary-elections\" target=\"_blank\">call them frauds<\/a>: &#8220;If you&#8217;re a socialist, you&#8217;re not a Democrat.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New York Rep. Tom Suozzi also has taken a more aggressive tack, <a href=\"https:\/\/suozziforcongress.com\/article\/after-wins-by-democratic-socialists-centrist-democrats-unite-to-push-back\/\" target=\"_blank\">joining other centrists<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/24\/mamdani-lander-valdez-chevalier-espaillat-goldman\" target=\"_self\">push back<\/a> against the Democratic Socialists of America: &#8220;People who do not support the DSA wring their hands at cocktail parties, while the DSA is organizing.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The difference: Unlike Suozzi or Gottheimer, Shapiro is widely seen as a presidential contender, which would necessitate uniting Democrats of all types.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but: <\/strong>There are times when Shapiro does distance himself from parts of the left.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He&#8217;s said he has &#8220;profound differences&#8221; with Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who ousted Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York&#8217;s Democratic primary.<\/li>\n<li>Shapiro also has said that &#8220;people who want open borders and no prisons and no police \u2014\u00a0they&#8217;re wrong.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>But that&#8217;s a bit of a straw-man argument \u2014 virtually no elected officials are talking about defunding the police anymore, not even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/07\/31\/politics\/mamdani-defund-police-shooting\" target=\"_blank\">socialist<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/06\/01\/politics\/kfile-ny-13-darializa-avila-chevalier-deleted-tweets-defund-abolish-police-prisons-deportations\" target=\"_blank\">leaders<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines: <\/strong>Shapiro&#8217;s centrist identity is no secret: He is pro-school vouchers, supports an &#8220;all of the above&#8221; energy policy, and brags about cutting taxes.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But he&#8217;s tried to find common ground with progressives. He <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hollyotterbein\/status\/2059260005820277083\" target=\"_blank\">talks regularly<\/a> with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/05\/05\/science\/video\/ai-chatbot-character-health-doctor-shapiro-lead-jake-tapper\" target=\"_blank\">sued an AI company<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/12\/07\/shapiro-pennsylvania-strategy-midterms-2028\" target=\"_blank\">put his political muscle<\/a> behind a Bernie Sanders\u2013backed union leader running for a key House seat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The other side: <\/strong>Matt Bennett, a former Clinton aide and co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, said it&#8217;s just a matter of timing. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;People like Shapiro will articulate very sharp differences with the DSA and the rest of the extreme left. But they probably won&#8217;t do that until they are fully into a presidential primary.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying: <\/strong>&#8220;Gov. Shapiro has been clear that with a president and a Congress hurting Pennsylvania families and attacking our democracy, no one should take their eye off the task of winning in 2026,&#8221; Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Flashback: <\/strong>Though Shapiro often compares this moment to 1992, he has been significantly less aggressive than Clinton.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As Arkansas&#8217; governor in the years before he ran, Clinton picked fights with powerful groups on the left, including organized labor, environmental groups, teachers and other activists.<\/li>\n<li>In 1990, the head of Arkansas&#8217; AFL-CIO <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/archive\/6719998\/how-clinton-ran-arkansas\/\" target=\"_blank\">accused<\/a> Clinton&#8217;s state administration of &#8220;union busting.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The Sierra Club <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/archive\/6719998\/how-clinton-ran-arkansas\/\" target=\"_blank\">repeatedly criticized<\/a> Clinton on his policies involving forests and animal pollution.<\/li>\n<li>In 1990, Clinton became the head of the centrist, business-friendly Democratic Leadership Council. The group&#8217;s first manifesto under Clinton called for the Democratic Party to &#8220;expand opportunity, not government.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>And when he launched his 1992 campaign, Clinton proudly labeled himself a &#8220;different kind of Democrat.&#8221; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Josh Shapiro says the 2028 presidential race should be a once-in-a-generation battle over the Democratic Party&#8217;s core identity. But so far, he isn&#8217;t picking up his sword to fight. As progressives and socialists have won primary after primary in recent weeks, the more moderate Shapiro often has been gun-shy about criticizing the left, taking more&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/-RRAM-jINIF4OoFqILwcLjaE_v8=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/10\/1783708944662.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}