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Democrats seeking a way to bounce back from their dismal losses in November are embracing the abundance movement, which promises to rein in Big Government, Big Labor and other left-wing staples, claiming it impedes housing, public transit and green energy projects that appeal to their base.
The nascent movement has quickly divided the party while also catching on in real time: It’s credited with pushing California Gov. Gavin Newsom to ditch a key environmental regulation and sidestep the demands of labor unions in order to pass a budget package that expedites housing development in the state.
“This isn’t just a budget. This is a budget that builds. It proves what’s possible when we govern with urgency, with clarity, and with a belief in abundance over scarcity,” Mr. Newsom said at the June 30 bill signing that gave a high-profile nod to the new movement.
A top 2028 Democratic presidential contender, Mr. Newsom has enthusiastically adopted the abundance agenda, which, he said, aims for “a more responsive and results-driven government.”
Democratic lawmakers and party thought leaders outside California are embracing the movement as a pathway to rebuilding support following their disastrous November election results.
“Abundance is the potential framework for the reinvention of the Democratic Party,” House Rep. George Whitesides said at a Democratic retreat in April hosted by the Progressive Policy Institute.
Growing enthusiasm for the movement followed the March release of a best-selling book, “Abundance,” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which declares many of the rules and regulations of the 1970s are a hindrance to the liberal goals of today’s “urban density” and green energy projects.
“Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed,” they write.
Democrat Zellnor Myrie ran on the abundance platform in New York City’s Democratic primary in June and picked up about 1% of the vote.
But the movement got a shout-out from primary winner Zohran Mamdani, who has skyrocketed to the top of the party — and national politics — by capturing the left-wing vote with his ultra-liberal plans to significantly expand housing and free transit.
“I find a lot of the discussion around abundance to be quite compelling,” Mr. Mamdani said during an interview on the “FYPod” podcast. “There are a lot of regulations, rules and even fines that we do not have a huge justification for any longer.”
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are adopting the principles of the abundance movement through a new, bipartisan caucus advocating for pro-growth policies. It aims to increase American energy production, make housing more affordable and speed up infrastructure projects by cutting red tape and incentivizing development.
“One of the cruelest ironies in America is that we have more laws restricting the supply of affordable housing than expanding it,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, New York Democrat. “That’s neither progressive nor pro–working class. It’s time for every elected official to embrace an agenda of abundance — an abundance of opportunity for all Americans.”
The rise of the abundance platform has angered many on the left who say the movement runs counter to the party’s liberal-leaning populist agenda, led by the likes of Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Their message has attracted droves of young voters in part by blaming not the government, but the “oligarchy” of billionaires and big corporations for the problems facing working-class Americans.
“We won’t beat Trump’s rightwing populism with more of the same sucking-up to corporate donors that voters have become disgusted with. If anything, that strategy threatens to further cut Democrats off from their former working-class base,” Aaron Regunberg, a Democratic organizer who served in the Rhode Island Legislature, told The Washington Times.
A Demand Progress poll taken in May found about a third of Democrats would be more likely to support a candidate running for Congress or the White House on the abundance agenda, compared to nearly 73% who said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate running on a populist agenda.
The poll defined a populist candidate as someone who believes big corporations have too much power over the economy and need to be reined in. The abundance agenda was described as one that would push back against “organized interest groups and community groups,” who slow down housing, energy and road projects by exploiting regulations.
In California, regulations got the ax as well as the organizations exploiting them under the umbrella of the abundance movement.
Housing, transit, wildfire mitigation and infrastructure projects in California have for years been hobbled by the landmark California Environmental Quality Act. The 1970 law signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan stalled projects by opening them up to endless lawsuits from environmental groups and organizations opposed to the developments.
Mr. Newsom’s two-bill legislative package takes a hammer to some of those rules and regulations. It weakens CEQA by streamlining approval for housing and infrastructure projects, and it exempts a large swath of urban residential development from CEQA entirely.
The legislative package freezes new residential building standards for the next six years and speeds up housing permitting and approvals.
The governor also bypassed demands from labor unions who sought wage increases and other new benefits for workers, which would have hiked building costs and slowed the development of new housing.
Mr. Newsom and those who support the legislation said the reduced regulatory burden will jumpstart construction and begin to fill the state’s shortage of an estimated 4 million housing units.
The governor, echoing the movement’s mantra, said, “We’re urgently embracing an abundance agenda by tearing down the barriers that have delayed new affordable housing and infrastructure for decades.”
Mr. Newsom’s actions rankled environmentalists who typically mount their opposition against Republicans.
Sierra Club California Senior Policy Strategist Jakob Evans complained the legislation was written without transparency, “and will have destructive consequences for environmental justice communities and endangered species across California.”
Steve M. Boyle, executive director of the YIMBYDems, a group advocating for the abundance agenda, said the abundance platform will pave the way for more green energy projects by removing the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles blocking their development.
“Democrats nationwide, from every corner of the party, are rallying behind Progressive Abundance as a blueprint for a new era where everyone has more of what they need, where rents are cheap and so is clean energy, and where all of us can rise together to our highest heights yet,” Mr. Boyle said.
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