928: The Substack Election?
Big Tent reading ahead of 2028
The hook for this prediction over at
was , who touted the Substack platform for enabling him to “communicate in a lot of different ways about different topics with very different audiences.”Egan also cited Senators
and as presidential hopefuls turning to the platform:These Democrats have come to Substack both in search of new audience connections and as refugees from sites that have grown toxic or untraversable: X’s redpilled algorithm and Meta’s shadowbanned political content. As cable news becomes less relevant and as liberals have scattered across a variety of social media platforms, Substack has become one of the few places to offer stability: with a growing audience, a reliable information delivery system, and a variety of mechanisms (emails, Twitter-like “notes,” videos, and various chat tools) to convey one’s message and engage directly with followers.
The company sees an opportunity. Its employees have been meeting with congressional staffers and chatting up aides to potential 2028 presidential candidates, encouraging them to get on the platform. Substack also recently hired Alli Brennan, who worked in political guest booking at CBS News and CNN—the type of person who has phone numbers and contacts for just about everyone in D.C. whom the company is hoping to get on its platform. The goal is ambitious: they want Substack to become the essential online arena for political discourse in the upcoming election cycles.
It is not just presidential candidates. When we started writing WelcomeStack on this platform 3+ years ago, the “Best In The Big Tent” often featured Substacks like The Bulwark,
, , and . Then two years ago, we started sharing posts from the first thoughtful elected official go really deep here, .Groups Chat will feature Substack newsletters shaping how we think about the future of the Democratic Party with 928 days left until the first presidential primary.
And we’re always on the outlook for more, so drop a note with any suggestions.