To win in 2028, Democrats need a message on corruption

The 2028 election is more than 1,200 days away, but Democrats ranging from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) are already positioning themselves for a White House campaign. It’s far too early to know exactly what issues will be top of mind for voters — or who the nominee will be — but history suggests that one topic that is likely to be important is that of perceived corruption in government.

A continuing theme for President Trump over the last decade since his first campaign was to “drain the swamp.” In each of his campaigns, Trump’s message on corruption met a sympathetic electorate.

According to the American National Election Study, a major national political science survey conducted every two to four years, the percentage of Americans who believe most government officials are corrupt has seen a notable increase since the start of the 2000s.

There was a particularly notable increase in the percentage of voters who thought government officials were corrupt in 2016 as compared to 2012 that has not abated in more recent iterations of the study.

Typically, the party that doesn’t control the presidency does well with voters who think government is corrupt. Trump, despite numerous allegations of corruption in his administration, won an uncommonly large percentage of these voters in 2020 as an incumbent. More consistent with other recent history, Trump also did well with these corruption-focused voters as a non-incumbent in 2016 and 2024.

Looking ahead to the 2028 election, which will also occur while Republicans control the presidency, Democrats need to find a message on corruption to win back at least some of the voters who think most government officials are crooked — and earn a chance to regain power. Making a strong bid for the White House in 2028 is not only important to Democrats, but to the health of American democracy, which relies on robust discourse between the parties.

One possible approach for Democrats is to focus on corruption in the private sector. My analysis of the ANESsurvey in 2020 found that those voters who thought government was corrupt, and also had unfavorable views of business, were less likely to support Trump than those who only thought that government was corrupt.

Some Democratic politicians have already embraced this populist, anti-corruption message. Recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) denounced corruption and greed in the private sector in their recent Fighting Oligarchy Tour. For example, at a rally in Idaho, Ocasio-Cortez argued that “an extreme concentration of power, greed, and corruption [was] taking over this country like never before."

Democratic politicians somewhat less aligned with the left of the party, such as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), have also connected the private sector to the Trump administration. For example, Murphy decried the fact that the State Department planned to dramatically increase purchases from Tesla as part of a "first 100 days of corruption" speech in April 2025.

A good test case of corruption messaging may come from next year’s Georgia U.S. Senate election. First-term Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has made corruption a central focus of his campaign, railing against "the depth of corruption” in the Trump administration and how “the policy focus is entirely on the interests of the elite benefactors of [Trump's] campaign and the GOP.” Ossoff also has focused on how corruption in politics is a concern that predated Trump as a result of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision.

As a swing state, Georgia will provide a particularly good context to examine the effectiveness of Ossoff’s approach to speaking about corruption in politics. And if he wins reelection, Ossoff may also be a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Ultimately, whether it is Sanders and AOC’s focus on corruption in the private sector or Murphy and Ossoff’s linkage with the Trump administration, Democrats looking to win the presidency in 2028 need to starting developing and testing messages on corruption to determine what best resonates with voters in order to win back the White House in 2028.

Jacob Smith is an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University. The views expressed here are solely his and not his employer’s.