2028 Democrats Court Black Voters at NAN Convention in Early Presidential Audition

Nine potential Democratic presidential contenders converged on the Sheraton Hotel in Times Square this week for the National Action Network's 35th Anniversary Convention, staging what amounted to the largest gathering of 2028 hopefuls yet before the constituency that could determine who wins the nomination.

The four-day convention, which concluded Friday, was founded by Rev. Al Sharpton in 1991 and has previously drawn addresses from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. This year the stakes felt categorically different: according to Pew Research Center data, Trump nearly doubled his support among Black voters between 2020 and 2024, climbing from 8 percent to 15 percent, a shift Democrats arrived hoping to reverse.

Democratic strategist Joel Payne framed the urgency plainly, calling Black voters "a core, if not the core, group of constituents in the Democratic coalition" and noting that the convention represented "the first time these candidates are going to be sized up. It's a chance to reset narratives, and set what your public profile might be."

Harris generated the convention's most electric moment. When Sharpton asked directly whether she would run in 2028, she replied: "Listen, I might. I'm thinking about it." The crowd immediately broke into chants of "run again!" A former Harris official tempered the reception, cautioning that "people don't like looking in the rearview mirror" and that she faces "a steep uphill climb."

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore earned more than two standing ovations and drew persistent chants of "run Wes run." He pressed the field toward the nearer term: "Any of these people who are thinking about 2028, I need to see that you're taking 2026 seriously." On his own ambitions, Moore deflected with precision: "I tell people, you know, I'm hungry, but I'm not thirsty."

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who spoke on opening day, April 8, urged Democrats to move past anti-Trump messaging toward something constructive. "What we need to do is not rebuild what was broken down, but build something better," he said, adding that he intends to be "a part of that debate." Sharpton's daughter noted she was surprised by the enthusiasm both Shapiro and California Rep. Ro Khanna generated from the audience.

The clearest point of ideological unity across the nine-candidate field was near-uniform condemnation of what Shapiro, Harris, and others repeatedly called "Trump's war of choice" with Iran. Sharpton used the stage to denounce the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote; former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned the measure would make it "impossible to use a driver's license to register to vote."

That same appearance by Buttigieg illustrated the convention's starkest contrast. Speaking shortly after Harris on Friday, he faced a room described as about half-empty and received soft applause from those who remained. Khanna, meanwhile, argued the party's 2028 standard-bearer "needs to articulate and run on a new moral vision for America" inspired by "the greats of Douglass and King." Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker declined to commit on his future, saying only that he does not know what he will be doing after his term ends.

The weekend produced an informal but legible early ranking: Moore and Harris generated crowd energy, Shapiro earned unexpected converts, and Buttigieg left with work still to do.