Dems will fail in 2028 if they go hard left and don’t work with Trump, Newt Gingrich warns

Democrats could bomb out of the 2028 election if they move further left and refuse to work with President Trump after their sweeping midterm victories, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.

“Bernie Sanders … intends to drive as hard as he can to get a very left-wing Congress. That would be a profound mistake for the Democrats,” Gingrich said during an appearance on the Cats Roundtable radio show.

“If the country is reminded how cuckoo these people are, by 2028 they are going to be much more willing to vote for Republicans,” he added.

Gingrich, the architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution, urged both parties to put aside political infighting and focus on delivering results for Americans — warning that Democrats could face the same backlash Republicans suffered Tuesday if they overreach.

“This is a moment to say… to the Democrats and … to the Republicans: ‘Your first job is not to figure out how to pick fights. Your first job is to figure out how you can possibly work together in order to find solutions that will make life better for the American people,” he said.

The former speaker was blunt about the Republican’s performance at the polls, acknowledging that Republicans had been rejected by voters.

“We got whooped,” Gingrich said. “As Republicans, we need to be honest and say, ‘We got whooped.’”

However, Gingrich cautioned agains over-interpreting the results, noting that Tuesday’s losses ranked only as the seventh-largest midterm defeat since 1938.

Gingrich pointed to his party’s 1994 takeover of the House, which was even bigger than the 2026 midterm result, shows that political fortunes can quickly reverse.

“You have to say your customers just told you they weren’t happy,” he said, urging Republicans to take a deep look at what went wrong, rather than just dismissing the results.

“If we don’t fix them, the American people in 2028 are going to vote to kick us out again,” he warned.

Gingrich also laid out a roadmap for Trump to win back voters’ confidence, advising the president to prioritize five policy solutions that resonate with Americans instead of spending his last two years attacking Democrats.

“My advice to Trump is find five really big solutions that the American people really want, make them what you talk about day after day, and put the pressure on the Democrats in Congress to vote with the American people or set themselves up for defeat in 2028,” he said.

The former speaker questioned whether Democrats would be able to resist pressure from their progressive wing, putting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the center of the party’s next test.

“It comes down really to Schumer and to Hakeem Jeffries. Are they willing to sit in a room in good faith and try to find solutions, or are they under such pressure from their big-government socialist radical wing that they have to adopt positions that you can’t negotiate over?” Gingrich questioned.

He also took an aim at defeated Republican Senate Candidate John Paxton in Texas, suggesting that candidate quality played a major role in the GOP’s struggles.

“Paxton may have been the worst Republican candidate in the country,” Gingrich said, adding that voters can reach a point where they question whether they can “really in good conscience vote for this person.”

Gingrich drew from his own experience working with former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, arguing that bipartisan cooperation requires buy-in from the White House — not just congressional Republicans.

“I wasn’t the key to bipartisanship. Clinton was,” Gingrich said. “I was willing to be bipartisan, but unless the President was willing to be bipartisan, it couldn’t happen.”