The Democratic leaders stepping up as Trump’s biggest foes

Democrats are deeply divided on how aggressively to resist President-elect Donald Trump and his allies. While some are taking a conciliatory approach to the incoming Republican trifecta, others are vowing to thwart their policies with every legal and legislative tool available.

It’s a moment those in the resistance camp — many with grander political ambitions — have been preparing for behind the scenes for many months.

Those preparations were aided by Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that outlined a policy wish-list for the next Republican administration, from slashing environmental regulations to issuing a national abortion ban.

Blue states began “Trump proof-ing” programs anticipated to be under attack by the federal government and beefing up teams of lawyers who will battle the new administration in court.

Now, those resistance Democrats — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — have a message for the latest installment of the Trump era: Bring it on.

“Violating the law, that is something [Trump] cannot find his way to stop doing — it’s part of his brand, it’s part of what he does,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is expected to run for governor in 2026, said in an interview. “If he doesn’t break the law, there is nothing for us to do, and he will be a law-abiding president. But we don’t expect that.”

These hostile counterforces represent just one segment of the Democratic Party, as its leaders strategize how to confront Trump when he reenters the White House backed by full GOP control of Congress. Some governors are taking a less combative approach, expressing a willingness to cooperate with the president-elect on certain fronts — at least for now.

Here’s a look at the pillars of the movement assembling to undercut Trump and his allies, a collection of Democratic governors, attorneys general and aligned interest groups.

Governors

Expect to see Newsom cement his standing as the lead Democrat fighting the feds. Newsom and Trump are old foes — and that rivalry is guaranteed to flare up as Trump reenters the White House and Newsom lays the groundwork for a potential 2028 presidential run.

Newsom has already begun to position California as the bulwark against the incoming Republican trifecta. Two days after the election, he called a special session of the state Legislature to protect California initiatives likely to be targeted by Trump, like civil rights protections and climate policies.

Beyond Newsom, keep an eye on the newly-formed nonpartisan group focused on countering “threats of autocracy” that was launched by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. The pair of governors say they’re talking to other Democrats and Republicans about joining the effort, which will have its own staff and researchers.

“You come for my people, you come through me,” Pritzker warned Trump in a post-election press conference.

Polis set up that group even as he heaped praise on Trump’s provocative pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaking to the complex balancing act governors must face these next few years with Trump in power.

Don’t discount the newcomers, either. Governors who entered office after Trump’s first term are joining the ranks of the resistance effort — though they’re doing so less overtly than some of their longer-serving peers.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul launched a program aimed at addressing “policy and regulatory threats” from the Republican administration and pledged to beef up coordination with her state’s attorney general to protect “New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms.” But she also phoned Trump to press her case for federal funding for key projects across the state.

Then there’s Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, who burnished her profile by repeatedly suing the Trump administration in her prior role as the state’s attorney general but largely retreated from the national spotlight after he left office. After Trump’s election, she roared back onto MSNBC with calls to “hold the line once again on the rule of law” and vows that state police would not comply with Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Attorneys General

When Trump issued the ban on Muslim travelers to the U.S. in the initial days of his first presidency, Democratic attorneys general offices were caught off guard. They scrambled to join together to file a multi-state lawsuit — kicking off an era of intense litigation between the states and federal government.

Those same offices don't intend to be surprised again.

“We’ve now had some more time to reflect on this, and it’s not as new as it was before,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who successfully took on the first Trump administration for withholding law enforcement grant money after the state objected to immigration-related stipulations that were attached to it.

“We’ll be more ready for this work,” Weiser said in an interview. “We know a little bit more the nature of what’s coming.”

Watch California’s Bonta, Minnesota’s Ellison, New Jersey’s Matthew Platkin and New York’s Letitia James as likely leaders of the litigation movement. "I didn't run for attorney general's office twice so that I could sue Trump. That's not what I'm here for," Ellison said at a recent press conference. "But if he violates the rights of people, we're gonna sue, it's simple as that."

Also keep an eye on the new crop of attorneys general from states that played a big role in prior lawsuits against Trump, like Dan Rayfield in Oregon and Nick Brown in Washington.

These offices will leverage their large staff of attorneys to likely challenge nearly every move from the Trump administration. In the days since the election, some offices have issued an open casting call to expand the ranks of their litigation attorneys, posting on Linkedin that “the need for the best and brightest lawyers to join us has never been greater.”

But while those attorneys general may be more practiced suing Trump this time around, they face more institutional and political challenges that could make it difficult to prevail in court, namely a more conservative Supreme Court that Trump has played a major role in shaping. The president-elect also has the backing of more Republicans in Congress who will likely look to use their majorities in both chambers to pass legislation superseding state laws.

Interest Groups

While Democratic governors worried about their own political futures might not want to be the face of fighting Trump on every front, interest groups that have that as their sole mission will be more than happy to practice scorched earth tactics to stymie the administration.

Democracy Forward, a liberal legal organization launched during the first Trump administration, intends to continue its work challenging federal rules — and this time is armed with a much larger staff and multi-million dollar war chest. Its board members include Democratic legal bigwig Marc Elias and Ron Klain, former chief of staff to President Joe Biden.

There will be plenty of conflict in the abortion space. Trump pledged to veto a national abortion ban should one hit his desk. But Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the vice president-elect, suggested on the campaign trail that the Republican administration would defund Planned Parenthood, telling reporters that “we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions.”

A slate of political groups supporting abortion rights — EMILYs List, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Reproductive Freedom for All — issued a post-election memo in which they vowed to hold Trump and “all anti-abortion politicians accountable for what they have already done and what they plan to do to destroy reproductive freedom.”

In the immigration arena, the American Civil Liberties Union fired its initial warning shot against the Trump administration by filing a lawsuit on Monday seeking more information about how authorities might quickly deport people from the U.S.

Trump officials are thinking about how to construct executive actions aimed to withstand the legal challenges from immigrants’ rights groups — a strategy intended to avoid the pitfalls of the first Trump term, like when civil rights groups and state attorneys general successfully delayed implementation of various versions of the Muslim travel ban.

Watch the activities of climate organizations like EarthJustice and the Sierra Club, who are bracing for the continued reversal of dozens of environmental rules dealing with everything from air pollution limits to drilling in protected areas.

“We are even stronger now, and we’re ready,” EarthJustice, which sued the Trump administration more than 130 times and won the vast majority of court decisions, said in a statement after the election was called for Trump. “We will see Donald Trump in court.”