Clyburn’s Warning To Democrats: Deliver, Explain It And Listen To The South

Rep. Jim Clyburn has advice for Democrats coming out of Tuesday’s election: Focus on voters’ everyday needs, listen to the South and find a 2028 nominee who demonstrates the ability to manage resources and people.

The South Carolina Democrat also said he would support expelling Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) from the Democratic Caucus and questioned whether another push to impeach President Donald Trump would be worth the party’s energy.

Here are five takeaways from Clyburn's interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns on “The Conversation.”

He would support expelling Haley Stevens — and sees echoes of John Lewis in Abdul El-Sayed

Clyburn said he would support removing Stevens from the House Democratic Caucus after she endorsed Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers over Democratic Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

“If that were to come forward with some kind of a resolution to be voted on, I think I would vote for that,” he said.

Clyburn was at the center of the blowup between Stevens and El-Sayed. Stevens initially said she would attend church with the longtime Democratic leader and El-Sayed on the Sunday before the election — before back-and-forth sniping between her and the eventual winner led to her eleventh-hour endorsement of Rogers.

Asked why he devoted so much time to Michigan, Clyburn compared the hostility El-Sayed faced to the struggles of a civil rights icon, former Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

“I think he is going through a whole lot that people like John Lewis went through,” he said, citing Lewis’ beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and El-Sayed’s opportunity to become the first Muslim elected to the Senate.

“They're going after a brown Muslim today; they're gonna be coming after a Black Muslim tomorrow,” Clyburn recalled telling a group in Michigan.

He resisted framing El-Sayed’s victory as a win for only the party’s progressive wing: “It gives all of us a boost,” he said. “It was important to me for him to get elected, not because of which wing of the party he was in. It was because he was in the party.”

Another Trump impeachment shouldn’t consume Democrats’ time

Clyburn cautioned against making a third Trump impeachment a central undertaking for Democrats as they return to power in Congress.

“I don’t think that impeaching Trump with two years left should take up our time and our energy and the American people’s attention,” he said.

Instead, he singled out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for scrutiny.

“What I do think, though, is that something needs to be done about Hegseth. Something needs to be done about RFK Jr.,” he said, arguing their actions would have an “immediate impact” on Americans’ lives.

Clyburn pointed to vaccinations and Hegseth’s personnel decisions, but he said even those concerns should not outweigh voters’ economic needs.

“These kinds of things must be addressed, but they cannot be the priorities,” he said. “The priorities have gotta be putting food on the table, getting to and from work, and also, to make sure that our families have the health care that they need.”

Democrats need to deliver — then tell voters what they did

Clyburn’s prescription for his party ahead of 2028: Follow through on campaign promises and stop letting opponents define the results.

“Come January, by God, we better do it,” he said. “And in the spring of the year, we need to go back to them and tell them what we've done.”

He pointed to the Affordable Care Act as an example, arguing that Democrats delivered on expanding health care access but failed to explain the law, leaving Republicans room to characterize it with claims about “death panels.”

He added that Democrats need to connect their accomplishments directly to the voters who put them in office this time.

“We got to share with the American people exactly what it is that we have done,” he said. “That's not what we've done in the past.”

His message to the party’s consultants: “Listen to us who live here in the South”

Clyburn has a pointed message for the Democratic consultants and donors deciding where the party should invest after Tuesday’s wins.

“Listen to us who live here in the South,” he said. “Why would you listen to somebody sitting in some air-conditioned office who has never been in one of these states on how to spend your money rather than those of us who are out here every day with people?”

He argued that Democrats have pursued a narrow electoral strategy at the expense of organizing across the country, calling it a “17-state rather than a 50-state program.”

Neglecting the South, he said, also means neglecting a substantial share of Black Americans.

“If you are ignoring these southern states, you are actually ignoring the states where 52% of African Americans live,” Clyburn said. “And that's the kind of stuff we were trying to get people to understand. They don’t seem to understand that.”

The 2028 calls are coming

Clyburn said he’s received four calls the day after the election from potential 2028 contenders but refused to identify which would-be presidential hopefuls they were.

He described recent phone conversations with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and he mentioned campaigning with Sen. Raphael Warnock (Ga.), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. He also referenced past conversations with Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.).

“I think all of them would do well,” he said when asked about their prospects in South Carolina, adding Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the conversation.

Clyburn also said his top qualification for the next presidential nominee has to be someone who can “demonstrate the ability to manage.”

“You gotta manage this country,” he said. “This country is in dire need of someone to manage its resources and manage its people.”

He suggested governors could bring that experience, while leaving the door open to senators who show the same trait.

“Don't get carried away with sound bites and how many followers you got on the internet,” he said. “The question is, are these people following you or are these people trolling you?”