Democrats take page from conservative playbook with new Project 2029

Democrats are taking a page from the conservative playbook.

A group of leading Democratic Party thinkers is beginning to collaborate on a policy agenda for their eventual presidential nominee in the 2028 election cycle. 

And, as first reported by the New York Times, they're calling it Project 2029. It's an obvious play on the notorious Project 2025, the more than 900-page policy blueprint assembled by the conservative powerhouse Heritage Foundation think tank for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nominee.

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Democrats repeatedly attacked Project 2025 during the previous White House race as a far-right threat to the nation. Then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and his campaign distanced themselves from the document, even as many Trump allies helped draft it. 

But Trump, during the opening months of his second tour of duty in the White House, executed much of what was proposed in Project 2025. And Russell T. Vought, who was a key member of the team that produced the document, now leads the Office of Management and Budget.

The Democrats behind Project 2029 hope to rally White House hopefuls behind their policy framework as the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination race heats up following the 2026 midterm elections.

The project is being spearheaded by Andrei Cherny, a onetime Democratic speechwriter and state party leader.

"Avengers… Assemble!" he wrote in a social media post, as he spotlighted the New York Times story on Project 2029.

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Democrats are aiming to escape the political wilderness following 2024 election setbacks, when the party lost control of the White House and the Senate, and failed to win back the House majority. And 2025 polls have indicated the Democratic Party brand sinking to new lows.

"After several Democratic presidential runs that featured the old guard, there is a hunger for the next generation of candidates and ideas," Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the center-left Third Way, told Fox News.

Kessler, who's involved with the project, added that the effort "is a chance for those candidates to see and test out new policy ideas. The advisory group runs the gamut of the Democratic ideological perspective, so these new ideas may not bring a consensus, but it can act as a showroom for presidential candidates to test drive."

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, asked about Project 2029, welcomed more ideas to the party's conversation.

But Carville told Fox News Digital that "the person Democrats need to look to, whose ideas will count, is the next presidential nominee. People can throw ideas out and the different candidates can respond in one way or another, but the idea that a political party can develop a message outside of having some power – it's been done before, but it's quite difficult."

Word of Project 2029 comes amid continued divisions in the Democratic Party between its establishment and progressive wins.

And it comes as the stunning victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary by outsider and 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani over former three-term Gov. Andrew Cuomo has reignited the party's argument over whether the Democrats' problem is their policy or their messaging.