Project 2029 was supposed to be a quiet Democratic policy effort. Then, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker recast it as a plan to prosecute Trump officials, and the 2028 race got louder.
What began in mid-2025 as a Democratic think tank's answer to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 has been reshaped by Pritzker's call to criminally and civilly prosecute Trump administration officials if his party retakes the White House in 2028. The shift has put Project 2029 at the centre of the next presidential race and reignited an old debate about the cost of governing through investigation.
From Think Tank to Flashpoint
The original Project 2029 was launched in July 2025 by Andrei Cherny, a former chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, as a counter to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. Chad Maisel, a former Biden White House domestic policy aide who also worked for Senator Cory Booker, was named executive director in February 2026, Axios first reported.
More than 200 people are working on dozens of policy proposals across economic policy, voting rights, climate, and federal government reform. Advisers reportedly include former Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, Third Way founder Jim Kessler, and economist Justin Wolfers. That was the version the party launched. Then Pritzker rebranded it.
Pritzker's Push For Prosecutions
In a March 2026 interview with The New York Times, Pritzker said Democrats needed their own Project 2029 to 'restore the rule of law' by holding Trump-era officials accountable. Asked by reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro whether that meant criminal charges for officials and federal agents, the governor replied, 'Criminally prosecuted, civilly prosecuted, whatever it is that we can do.'
Pritzker has since urged the Illinois Accountability Commission to examine the conduct of senior federal officials, including White House adviser Stephen Miller, over immigration enforcement in Chicago. He has also called for President Donald Trump's removal over the deployment of National Guard troops to the city and, more recently, over the US-Iran conflict.
The 2028 Race Has Already Begun
Pritzker is running for a third term as Illinois governor in November 2026, but he is widely seen as a leading 2028 contender. At the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference in April 2026, he told the crowd, 'I'm going to fight like hell to elect a Democrat in 2028,' appearing alongside Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Wes Moore, and Josh Shapiro.
That positioning has turned Project 2029 from a policy document into a campaign signal. Conservative critics, including Daily Signal analyst Mehek Cooke, have called it a 'revenge tour' and argued it prioritises punishing political opponents over the affordability and safety concerns she said voters care about most.
What This Means For Taxpayers and Federal Workers
The bigger story is what happens after 2028 if the prosecution model becomes routine. The Mueller probe into Russian election interference cost taxpayers roughly $32 million (£24 million), the Justice Department reported in 2019. Special Counsel Jack Smith's two Trump investigations cost about $50 million (£37 million) before being dropped in late 2024.
If each new administration investigates the last one, those bills land on US taxpayers, and the chilling effect reaches every federal worker weighing a career in public service. Public servants now face a calculation their predecessors did not: the risk that lawful work under one president becomes legal exposure under the next.
That is the part of Project 2029 that has yet to be written. Whoever wins in 2028 will decide whether Pritzker's framing becomes policy or stays a campaign line that helped define the race.
