Inside the rise of hardship politics as wealthy Democrats eye 2028

Wealthy Democrats eyeing higher political aspirations are leaning into stories of childhood hardship and family trauma as privilege becomes a political liability on the left, according to J.P. De Gance, founder of the nonprofit Communio.

"Privilege is one of the worst things you can have within progressive ideology," De Gance told Fox News Digital.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has become one of the clearest examples of that tension, DeGance explained. In his recent memoir and media profiles, Newsom has framed his upbringing as a study in contrasts: elite access through his family’s close ties to the Getty fortune, but also a childhood marked by divorce, dyslexia, financial strain, odd jobs and his mother taking in foster children to help pay the rent.

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"They really were leaning into family trauma, resentment, arguments from their childhood background. These are guys trying to introduce themselves on a national stage and traditionally, you would have a candidate introduce himself by telling you his hardscrabble story and maybe being a busser," he said.

De Gance said that kind of personal storytelling could become more common as Democrats with elite backgrounds try to connect with voters shaped by economic strain, family breakdown and addiction – most notably as the nation inches closer to the next presidential election in 2028. 

A spokesperson for Newsom defended the book as an effort to tell the "complete and unvarnished story" of the governor’s upbringing.

"Governor Newsom's book was a chance to tell the complete and unvarnished story about his family and upbringing, which he has repeatedly acknowledged spanned two worlds: one in which his father worked for a family with a great fortune and the other with a ‘rock star’ mom who raised two children and worked multiple jobs," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "He’s not running from any one narrative nor favoring another — this is the accurate and complete story of his childhood."

De Gance, whose nonprofit works with churches to strengthen marriages and families, collaborated on a new study from the nonprofit Austin Institute, and argued that figures such as Newsom or Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another Democrat who comes from a wealthy family, reflect a broader shift in Democratic political messaging toward emotional struggle and childhood trauma that resonates with more voters.

"This reflection on childhood resentment, childhood trauma and I think in a certain sense we should expect more of this because I think in a sense Pritzker, Newsom and others are reflecting what they're seeing in a lot of in a lot of the electorate," he added.

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Voters whose parents stayed continuously married were 67% more likely to identify as conservative or very conservative compared to those whose parents never married, while only 46% of Americans under 30 grew up in an intact family, according to the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey.

"A majority of Americans now under age 30 … have grown up in a home where mom and dad didn’t stay married through childhood," said De Gance.

De Gance said the survey found former Vice President Kamala Harris performed better among 2024 voters whose parents did not remain married during childhood, while President Donald Trump performed better among voters whose parents stayed married.

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Newsom has spoken publicly about his parents’ divorce, dyslexia and difficult upbringing – including eating Wonder Bread sandwiches and mac and cheese — despite his elite political connections. 

"By relating themselves as victims of past family resentment and trauma, it’s also a desire to associate with elements of victim groups," said De Gance.

Newsom’s father, Bill, was a longtime close friend and adviser to billionaire Gordon Getty, helping manage parts of the Getty family fortune, while the Getty scion brought a young Gavin Newsom and his sister on vacations to Kenya and Canada, the New Yorker reported in 2004. 

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A Vogue profile of Newsom, published in February ahead of the release of his memoir, renewed backlash over characterizing his childhood as financially difficult despite cozy ties to one of the most prominent and wealthy families in the world. 

"People assume Newsom comes from money. He doesn’t. Access, yes. Privilege, yes. Money, no. The most compelling aspect of Newsom’s biography is his schizophrenic upbringing, vis-à-vis wealth," said the profile published in Vogue. "After his parents’ divorce, his father seems not to have provided much financial support. Tessa Newsom, née Menzies, scrambled to keep the family afloat."

"Young Gavin chipped in, picking up a newspaper route and a job as a busboy. They took in foster kids because the government stipend helped pay the rent. Meanwhile, there were the Gettys," Vogue continued before launching into the Newsom family ties to the powerful Getty family, an American dynasty built on oil. 

Pritzker, another wealthy Democratic governor viewed as a possible 2028 contender and heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, has also spoken publicly about early family trauma, including the death of his father when he was a child, his mother’s alcoholism and the sense that he was "robbed" of a normal childhood.

Pritzker has compared himself to an orphan, saying he has grown up faster and that life as an orphan feels like "a sense of being robbed," he said to The New Yorker.

Pritzker has touted his hard work beginning as a busboy at one of his family's hotels as a teenager.

"The hotel business had made the family wealthy enough that Pritzker and his siblings would never have to have real jobs, but [Pritzker's mother] had gone out of her way to instill in them the value of work," the New Yorker reported of Pritzker in a 2023 profile. "When Pritzker was a teenager, he had been a busboy at Rickey’s Hyatt House, the hotel that launched the family fortune."

"You have to work twice as hard as the guy next to you, because you didn't earn this," Pritzker said to the New Yorker, sharing his mother’s advice as a child.

Fox News Digital reached out to Pritzker for comment.