Democrats are increasingly calling Lina Khan to ask what remaking the economy might look like under an antitrust approach, a sign that the chair of the Federal Trade Commission has become a live issue inside the party ahead of 2028. Khan, who previously worked as a private antitrust attorney and at the Columbia University School of Law, is now being treated by some Democrats as more than an agency leader. Some see her as a potential presidential candidate.
The interest is part policy, part politics. Chuck Schumer has repeatedly refused to meet with Khan, and Kamala Harris did not feature her prominently in public remarks during the 2024 campaign, even as Khan’s name kept surfacing in Democratic circles. Cory Booker, by contrast, has shown growing support for Khan and has invoked FDR in arguing that democracy should work for everyone.
Khan herself described the opening as a chance for Democrats to think bigger. Speaking at Columbia University, she said Democrats can sometimes be seen as too “nerdy” and as not knowing how to talk to ordinary people. She also said the administration came to power with a clear agenda and very specific powers it was ready to use immediately, a level of mastery she said her side has to make up.
Her argument goes beyond campaign messaging. The antitrust project that has put Khan at the center of Democratic conversation is built on the idea that existing laws can be used more aggressively against modern corporations that have become as monopolistic, in her telling, as Standard Oil once was. That approach calls for greater transparency and accountability than the Biden administration’s use of broad powers across different sectors.
The friction is not hard to see. Democrats are seeking a figure who can explain a harder-edged economic agenda in plain language while also signaling a clean break from the status quo, and Khan is emerging as one of the few people in the party who can credibly do both. But her rise also exposes a split between those who want a more forceful antitrust politics and those who still prefer a narrower, more cautious path. For now, the question is no longer whether Khan has Democrats’ attention. It is whether her version of governing can become the party’s own.