Rep. Ro Khanna of California leaned forward in a patterned armchair as a rooster crowed outside, listening as a group of farmers in rural Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, told him that Democrats came across as inauthentic and insincere.
“Don’t promise the farm and not come up with it,” said Joe McCann, who grows hay and raises pigs. “And don’t lie to people. I can take anything, but if someone’s standing there physically lying to me and blowing smoke up my butt, that’s not going to cut it.”
Khanna agreed, fretting that his party had for too long “looked down” on blue-collar voters. Then he quipped: “How do you think I’m doing? Lying?” McCann, 78, said he didn’t think so.
Khanna, D-Calif., has emerged as one of the most prolific surrogates of the 2026 cycle. He has endorsed more than 70 candidates for seats in the House, Senate and state legislatures, positioning himself on the front lines of a burgeoning progressive movement as discontent with the status quo has propelled a series of left-wing candidates to primary victories.
But there was another reason for his vigorous political itinerary this campaign season: a possible presidential run in 2028. He wants to see the left’s power grow within the Democratic Party. He wants its policy prescriptions, such as universal healthcare and taxing the rich, to shape the conversation about who the party’s nominee for president should be.
And he knows that none of that is likely to happen if the left bombs in November.
A little 2026, and a little 2028
Despite their major wins in primaries this season, progressives’ ability to sway the general electorate in competitive races remains untested. A new poll released by The New York Times and Siena University on Sept. 15 found that a slight majority of voters disliked socialism.
In Khanna’s view, the only way the movement can change that perception is if it figures out how to talk to the working class.
Khanna, born outside Philadelphia to immigrants from India, has been preparing for his political future out in the open. In the past two months, he has taken many of the steps of an early presidential candidate.
He held a town hall with Latino voters in Nevada. He told the Democratic National Committee in a searing speech that the party needed to turn its back on corporate interests and military aid to Israel. He also ventured abroad, leading a congressional trip to the Vatican to discuss safeguards against artificial intelligence with Pope Leo XIV and visiting the West Bank, where he was detained by armed Israeli settlers.
Icons of the progressive movement, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have been choosier with their high-profile endorsements this year. Khanna is lesser known, and has work to do to change that. The eagerness can occasionally backfire; he has expressed regret for his endorsement of Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat who withdrew his Senate bid in July after a woman accused him of rape.
“He’s hustling,” said Bill Hyers, a progressive strategist who worked with two House candidates — Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania — whom Khanna endorsed in primaries this spring. Rabb won. Abughazaleh lost.
Added Hyers: “He’s just been out there really working hard and he’s the only person on the left I have seen where there’s no doubt he’s running.”
Over five days in Pennsylvania in July, Khanna, who grew up outside Philadelphia in suburban Bucks County, rallied for two House candidates whose primary victories in May stood out as early triumphs for the progressive movement. Their very different districts illustrated both the advantages and challenges facing the progressive left this fall.
In Philadelphia, Khanna talked about liberal priorities like “Medicare for All” with Rabb, a democratic socialist who is virtually assured of victory in November in his deep-blue district. In a battleground district in Allentown, Khanna discussed tariffs and job losses with union factory workers to help the candidacy of Bob Brooks, a firefighter and labor leader who faces a more difficult path to victory in November against Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican.
On behalf of both candidates, Khanna offered a similar pitch: The wealth and technological innovation of his high-income Silicon Valley district should be shared more widely. His agenda of “new economic patriotism,” he said, would spread technology jobs among Midwestern states and redistribute profits through a wealth tax.
“If we just are running on centrist mush that is put out by ChatGPT, bland and inoffensive, we’re not going to win,” Khanna told a reporter in the SUV he was riding in for the Pennsylvania swing. “It has to be a transformative vision.”
Khanna was generally well-received by an electorate in Pennsylvania that has soured on Republicans and seems increasingly willing to give Democrats another chance. But he also encountered the enduring skepticism of voters who see their leaders as having failed them.
“He comes across very progressive with his plans, but I don’t know that he’ll be able to carry them through,” said McCann, after Khanna’s conversation in Sharpsville. “This area that I live in right now is a depressed area — and anybody that gives anybody around here a vision of hope is the person they’re leaning toward. They just have that vision of hope that this might happen, and it never does.”
In an interview, Khanna said he planned to decide about 2028 between Thanksgiving and Christmas, after talking to his family and determining how viable he could be in battleground states.
His trip across Pennsylvania was intended in part to assess that. A progressive contender for president, Khanna said, would have to “do well in the Black South” and “do well in states like Pennsylvania.”
He said he was also forging bonds in southern states, including in South Carolina, where his partnership with Rep. Jim Clyburn and his daughter Jennifer Clyburn connects students at historically Black colleges and universities with scholarships from tech companies.
Khanna has recruited alumni of both progressive and establishment campaigns. He is being advised by Ron Klain, the chief of staff to former President Joe Biden, and has enlisted longtime advisers to Sanders such as Julian Mulvey and Jeff Weaver, according to a person familiar with the partnerships who requested anonymity to describe internal staffing issues.
The road ahead, plus AOC
A dismal progressive showing in November could instantly set back Khanna’s fortunes. So could something else: Ocasio-Cortez. If Ocasio-Cortez, the breakout star of the left, runs for president, she would appeal to the same liberal constituency as Khanna but with an enormous head start in popularity.
Khanna called Ocasio-Cortez an “extraordinary talent,” and dismissed the idea that she is a rival.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for her,” he said, adding, “I have genuinely never discussed what she wants to do in the future.”
Khanna said he talked with Ocasio-Cortez occasionally in the halls of the Capitol. He communicates more frequently with Sanders, speaking with him on the phone about AI and answering the senator’s queries about the chances of California voters passing a tax on billionaires this fall.
Khanna readily acknowledged that he lacked the political “star power” of his left-wing compatriots. “I’m not delusional,” he said.
His speeches are also a little heavy on policy and light on the kind of soaring rhetoric that voters often look for in a president.
That was the case in Pennsylvania, but he also tested catchphrases such as “economic patriotism,” and retail politicking seemed to come easily enough for him. One particular line, when he argued that President Donald Trump had not followed through on a simple promise — to replenish sand that had washed away along Lake Erie — got a good response from voters.
“I’ve seen a lot of clips of him online — I thought he was much more charismatic in person,” said Gideon Tsoutsouris, a college student in Pittsburgh.
Khanna portrayed his low profile as an asset, noting that other successful candidates — including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — began their bids as long shots. It’s an advantage, he said, “to go meet people and interact without the entourage.”
Khanna, a multimillionaire, likewise dismissed potential criticism of his wealth, which largely stems from his wife’s father, the founder of an automotive company.
“I tell people my own story of growing up middle-class in Bucks County, taking out loans for law school in my 20s, having forbearance and massive credit card debt,” Khanna said. “I think people will see that I had a middle-class life and even economic challenges.”
Hyers, the progressive strategist, said Khanna would likely face criticism for his long-standing relationships with the tech industry.
“The perception in a lot of the circles that I run in is, ‘How much money has he taken from the bad guys?’” Hyers said. (Khanna has since broken ties with many wealthy tech executives and called for taxing them more heavily.)
When Khanna’s tour rolled into Pittsburgh, he hopped around town, chatting with union leaders who are faculty members at a local university, nurses fighting for a labor contract and a group of college students.
Before addressing the students, he spoke with two groups protesting his visit on nearby street corners: the pro-Israel Beacon Coalition and the pro-business Americans for Prosperity, a creation of the conservative Koch family. One of the AFP protesters urged him to reject socialism.
The moment illustrated another challenge that Khanna would face in a presidential primary. He may be too progressive for moderates, and not progressive enough for some on the fractious left.
“I don’t believe the government should take over the means of production,” Khanna told the protesters. But, he added, many young people were turning to socialism “because they can’t afford rent, they don’t have a good job. They lost the American dream.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
