Signal Cleveland: Smarting from 2024 loss, Democrats regroup at mayors’ summit in Cleveland
Nick Castele, Signal Cleveland
Democrats rallied their defeated party at the Democratic Mayors Association summit at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel on Friday.
Titled “Community over Chaos,” the summit contrasted Democratic mayors with President Donald Trump’s administration. Mayor Justin Bibb, the association’s president, chatted onstage with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear about Democrats’ way forward after losing again to Trump.
A possible 2028 presidential contender, Beshear said the party should drop jargon and “get back to talking like normal human beings” — for instance, when talking about cuts in federal spending on food aid, known as SNAP or food stamps, that expand work requirements and shift costs to states. Dropping jargon is a theme he’s touched on before.
“We’re not going to get a repeal if we say more people are going to be ‘food insecure,’” he said Friday of the cut in spending on SNAP. “More people are going hungry.”
Rep. Ro Khanna of California used his time onstage to knock Vice President JD Vance in his home state.
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, on the other hand, made a case against negative campaigning at a City Club of Cleveland forum at the summit. A Democrat, she won election in a city that is split roughly down the middle between her party and Republicans.
“I hear so many people from our party talking about how we’ve got to match their outrage with outrage, we’ve got to match their ugliness with ugliness,” she said. “I think if we don’t share hope and positivity and vision and belief with our people in our cities, that we’re not ever going to win anybody back, and nor should we.”
Former Sen. Sherrod Brown offered some insight on the outrage. He now leads the Dignity of Work Institute, which conducted a survey and focus groups of U.S. workers.
Brown said that workers “overwhelmingly” thought that “the system was rigged against them.” He said Democrats should speak directly and take on such interests as private equity firms that buy up houses.
“When we talk to people about their lives, about the economy, about special interests, we win,” he said.
Brown took questions from the audience. But no one tried to make news by asking him if he’s running for anything in 2026.
Cleveland’s mayor said he is following a couple of leads to bring data centers to Cleveland — but that he’s trying to do so while balancing environmental impact with the need to attract new businesses.
Data centers, which are warehouses of computer servers that host companies’ information, consume large amounts of energy and water.
“As a pro-growth, pro-business mayor who’s also pro-environmental justice and addressing climate change, there’s always a balancing act,” Bibb said at a panel at the Aspen Ideas: Climate summit in Chicago on Tuesday.
The mayor shared the stage with fellow Democrat and former Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, along with representatives from Microsoft and the energy company Exelon. Robinson Meyer, the editor of the online climate publication Heatmap News, moderated.
Bibb, who is up for reelection this year, said that mayors need to make climate policy relatable.
“We have to stop talking about this issue like we are living in an ivory tower,” he said. “Climate change is about cost of living. It’s about public safety, and it’s about how we make sure that the benefits of this green energy revolution are broad-based.”
Bibb co-chairs the climate group America Is All In with former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and two Democratic governors whose names are in the 2028 presidential conversation: California’s Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker of Illinois.
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