Evidence from 2025 indicates that Ezra Klein’s “abundance” agenda has significantly influenced mainstream Democratic policy and discourse, contradicting Sacks’s claim that Klein would not “convince Democrats of this.”

1. Klein’s ideas are explicitly shaping top Democrats’ thinking. Klein’s book Abundance (March 2025) became a bestseller and is widely discussed inside the party. California Governor Gavin Newsom called it “one of the most important books Democrats can read,” sent copies to Democratic legislative leaders, and hosted Klein to discuss reorienting the party around building more housing and infrastructure with fewer bureaucratic barriers.(notus.org) Klein also briefed Senate Democrats at their May 2025 retreat, a sign that his framework is being taken seriously by national party leadership and 2028 hopefuls.(nypost.com)

2. Democratic-led governments have enacted major abundance-style reforms. In mid‑2025, California’s Democratic legislature and Newsom overhauled the state’s landmark environmental review law (CEQA) via AB 130 and SB 131, exempting most infill housing and some industrial projects from lengthy environmental review to cut red tape and speed construction—widely described as one of the most significant housing-policy changes in decades.(en.wikipedia.org) California also passed SB 79, the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, pre‑empting local zoning to allow mid‑ and high‑rise multifamily housing near transit, a core “YIMBY”/abundance demand.(en.wikipedia.org) These are large, mainstream Democratic policy moves in the party’s flagship state that directly embody the permitting and zoning reforms Klein advocates.

3. Congressional Democrats have organized around an explicitly abundance-oriented agenda. In May 2025, Rep. Josh Harder launched the bipartisan Build America Caucus, with more than two dozen members and over 30 House Democrats eventually involved, focused on energy permitting, transmission, housing, and infrastructure, explicitly inspired by Klein and Thompson’s Abundance and framed as cutting federal red tape to build more.(inclusiveabundance.org) Separately, reporting notes an “Abundance Caucus” and an Abundance Network–backed group of mayors and local officials (mostly Democrats) organizing to govern with an “abundance mindset.”(lemonde.fr) This is no longer a fringe current; it’s an organized, visible faction inside the Democratic mainstream.

4. Mainstream Democratic policy at the federal level now incorporates abundance-style deregulatory housing reforms. The bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act of 2025, co-led by Sen. Tim Scott (R) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), passed the Senate Banking Committee unanimously and was later folded into the Senate-passed NDAA. The bill is described as one of the most significant housing packages in over a decade and includes provisions aimed at increasing supply via zoning, permitting, and land-use reforms and other measures to cut red tape while expanding federal support.(washingtonpost.com) That Warren—hardly a marginal figure—has co-authored and championed a package centered on expanding housing supply and streamlining processes underscores that abundance-style thinking has penetrated the party’s policy core.

5. Media and think-tank coverage describe ‘abundance’ as reshaping Democratic discourse, not failing to gain traction. Analyses in the Washington Post and others say Klein and Thompson’s abundance agenda is “reshaping Democratic Party discourse,” especially around housing, infrastructure, and climate, even as it provokes debate with the party’s left.(washingtonpost.com) Le Monde similarly describes “abundance” as an emerging guiding principle among U.S. Democrats, citing an Abundance Caucus and recent California rollbacks of environmental rules as a “significant pivot” in Democratic strategy.(lemonde.fr) The centrist think tank Third Way has also rolled out a major housing plan explicitly aligned with the abundance framework—more construction, fewer regulatory barriers—as a recommended party direction.(axios.com)

6. There is still internal resistance—but that doesn’t mean there’s no substantial shift. Progressive activists and some electeds criticize abundance politics as corporatist or insufficiently focused on equity, and polling suggests Democratic voters slightly prefer a populist, anti-corporate frame over an “abundance agenda” when forced to choose.(axios.com) However, Sacks’s prediction was not that Klein’s ideas would face resistance; it was that Klein wouldn’t convince Democrats. The combination of: (a) high-profile Democratic governors and members of Congress explicitly embracing abundance framing, (b) major Democratic-run jurisdictions enacting large deregulatory permitting and zoning changes, and (c) congressional caucuses and bipartisan landmark bills centered on cutting red tape and boosting supply, all indicate that mainstream Democratic policy has moved meaningfully toward the abundance/permitting-reform model since Klein began his push.

Given this record, Sacks’s statement that Klein would not persuade Democrats in a meaningful way is best judged wrong as of November 30, 2025: the party’s mainstream policy conversation and significant legislative actions have, in fact, shifted substantially in the direction Klein advocated, even if the intra-party contest over how far to go remains ongoing.