Gov. Andy Beshear has spent years building a distinct political identity in the reliably red commonwealth of Kentucky by winning statewide as a Democrat even as Republican power has surrounded him. 

He's now playing a crucial role that will influence whether there will  be others like him around the country. 

Heading into what could be a favorable national political environment in the 2026 midterms, Beshear is leading the Democratic Governors Association as it tries to win in states where his party has either lost ground or are hoping to hold on to critical seats. 

"[A] signing in the Rose Garden isn't real to people anymore," Beshear said in an exclusive interview with CBS News during a party gathering in Arizona. "The vote on the resolution, on the amendment, much less a bill, isn't real to people anymore. What Democratic governors do is produce tangible results that you can see and touch and feel." 

Already that tone is being looked to as a potential way out of the national political malaise that Democrats faced after a string of setbacks during the 2024 presidential election, where they lost the White House, Senate and fell short of winning back the House. 

As leaders have contended with the first year of Republican President Donald Trump's second term, there's been a sense of frustration toward Democrats in Washington. This could create a potential opening for governors to chart the future for the party in a way that hasn't been tangible since Bill Clinton and his centrist ideals helped break a presidential losing streak for the left after 12 years of Republicans holding the White House in the late 20th century. 

In conversations around governors meetings in Phoenix, Arizona over the last few days, Democrats were at times effusive in sharing their belief that the party's presidential standard bearer in 2028 will be someone who has served like them. 

"I have absolutely no doubt that the candidate in '28 will be from the ranks of the Democratic governors, either current or past," Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, who led the Democratic governors group in this year's elections, told reporters. 

Which of them could potentially break through to the American public however is a fraught topic. Beshear is far from the only leader already facing questions about future ambitions, with other potential candidates including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. All four have been cautious to varying degrees about what their political futures may hold even though they made the party building rounds this weekend in Arizona. 

"As we look to where we are as a country, what we need going forward, the solutions are being driven by the governors," Whitmer, who is working alongside Beshear for the midterms as a vice chair for the Democratic governors' political outfit, exclusively told CBS News. 

Both Beshear and Whitmer have won two terms each leading their respective states and currently find themselves facing Republican leaders who are skeptical of Democrats by and large or critical of their leadership. 

Kentucky GOP chairman Robert J. Benvenuti III said in a statement, that "while Democratic governors from blue states have made their choice, Kentuckians have made another choice, Republican leadership and Republican policies as opposed to the radical and anti-American policies of the left." And in Michigan, Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt, who is running for governor himself, charged that Whitmer's "more concerned with her public appearance and public relations around the country than she is on solving Michigan's most pressing problems." 

Attention around the 2026 races have built given the role governors play in this modern political era. Some in the Democratic ranks have centered their leadership on navigating the Trump administration impact on a range of issues within their own states from public safety and the economy to cost of living and quality of life. Mr. Trump's tariffs, housing and grocery prices and the lack of affordable childcare have emerged as leading issues likely to inform how Democrats are running in the midterms. 

"I think we need an executive that can come in and help repair the federal government that this President has torn down," Beshear said. "I think the American people are desperate for results quickly, and that's what Democratic governors deliver." 

After a year of political infighting and within the family fighting on the national level after Democrats 2024 setbacks, decisive off-year election victories last month in the New Jersey and Virginia races for governor have helped give the left a boost heading into next year.

But those 2026 contests are already tracking to be far more difficult than the open races that played out in those two more reliably blue states this year. 

Democrats are attempting to win the Georgia governorship for the first time in decades, while also pushing for  Gov. Katie Hobbs to win another term in Arizona. The two races carry national political implications given Mr. Trump won both states in 2024, after they both swung to former Democratic President Joe Biden four years earlier. 

National Democrats are also eager to stay in power through open races in the influential battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin. They face a harder dynamic in ousting a Republican incumbent in Nevada and putting a Democrat in the Kansas governor's office for a third straight cycle while also eying potential pickup opportunities in open races in Iowa and Ohio that have become more reliably Republican over the last 15 to 20 years. 

"What I would tell our candidates is get dirt on your boots, make sure that you are showing up in places that maybe Democrats haven't gone in far too long," Beshear said during a briefing with reporters. 

For several governors — including Beshear, Whitmer, and Newsom — their political presence and what their work in 2026 will mean within the party moving forward may prove difficult to disentangle from any potential presidential ambitions. Newsom's brawling political approach to counter Mr. Trump this year has offered the Democratic base a clear alternative to what were considered slow-footed tactics by the party in the Biden-era. Speaking at a press briefing during the Arizona meetings, he steered the conversation to the midterms even as he stressed his views on party building behind the framing of not being there to preach but carrying a responsibility to practice. 

"The playbook is all being rewritten in real time, and we have to be authors of our own success, and we're not victims," Newsom said. "And that's another thing. I just don't like the victim mentality about this. I don't like this party being perceived as weak. More than any other issue, that's the issue that, to me, defines so much of our struggle." 

Earlier that same day talking to reporters, Beshear and Whitmer were asked about potential 2028 plans. The Michigan governor started off by saying "I'm not going to share anything other than I think we should have a Democratic governor be our candidate for 2028 president." Pressed if either of them would be part of the group that will run, Whitmer gave the kind of answer that's a hallmark of this undefined period in between political seasons, where a party looking for a way back to national power searches for answers without overpromising on who may be at the front of the charge to try and make that happen. 

"Who knows," Whitmer said.