“I could code talk to white guys — watching football, fixing their truck. … I was the permission structure to say, ‘Look, you can do this and vote for this,’” Walz said during a Harvard Kennedy School forum earlier this week.

If this doesn’t sound like effective messaging, the results of the 2024 campaign may not surprise you. Trump won 60% of white men, suggesting they did not respond well to Walz’s permission structure. Trump also carried 54% of Hispanic men and 21% of black men, according to exit polls.

Walz previously brought his brand of harmless masculinity to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) podcast, where he suggested that Trump-supporting men felt threatened by him and perhaps rightly so. “I do think I could kick most of their ass,” Walz said. (The singular is in the original.)

Perhaps a generic Democrat could do better next time. “I think we need to collectively run a presidential campaign without a candidate right now that builds all the infrastructure. … By the time we get to 2028, we’re ready,” Walz said. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) has now twice been successfully trolled by Trump. Her impromptu remarks as Trump marked his 100 days back in office went better than her hiding her face behind papers in the White House, but her tarmac embrace of the president could come back to haunt her. Chris Christie was never forgiven by his party’s base for hugging Barack Obama when they were governor of New Jersey and president of the United States, respectively. 

At the same time, Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), one of the Democrats’ rising stars, announced on Thursday that he would be taking a pass on the 2028 presidential race.

In retrospect, one of the signs that the Democrats were going to lose the 2024 election even after replacing former President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket was their most ambitious elected officials deciding to forgo the opportunity. No one seriously floated a challenge to former Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention after Biden dropped out. Whitmer and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), both Rust Belt governors, were similarly disinterested in being Harris’s running mate. 

Two major things could happen that might make 2028 different. The first is that if the economy and Trump’s poll numbers continue on their present trajectory, Democratic candidates will not need exceptional political skills to win. The second is that if the economy and Trump’s poll numbers are bad, more talented Democrats will see an opportunity and run.

Established politicians often fight the last war, and presidential campaigns often start a year or two before the actual election year. In 1992, most of the presumed top-tier candidates for the Democratic nomination chose not to run. Mario Cuomo, Richard Gephardt, Lloyd Bentsen, and others made their decisions in the aftermath of the Gulf War, when President George H.W. Bush had record job approval ratings and looked unbeatable. 

But the early ‘90s recession, coupled with the lips-defying Bush tax increase, made the incumbent quite vulnerable. Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor who had bombed in his 1988 Democratic convention speech, ascended to the top against second-tier competition like Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown. Clinton also proved to be a generational political talent. 

A lot could change between now and the midterm elections, much less the next presidential race. Trump’s numbers and the economy could improve. The political climate could be radically different.  Republicans will be looking at a different nominee in 2028, though that candidate will need to run under the conditions left by Trump, just as John McCain campaigned in the shadow of second-term George W. Bush.

AFTER 100 DAYS, CAN TRUMP PULL OFF SECOND GREAT POLITICAL COMEBACK? 

If the Democrats have a Clinton-like talent waiting in the wings, they have yet to show sufficient interest in the White House. But it wouldn’t take a huge shift from 2024 nationally or in the battleground states to produce a different electoral outcome.

Democrats need their opponents to create the permission structure Tim Walz couldn’t.