The 2028 presidential election seems a long way off at the moment. Most people interested in politics, be they office-holders, potential candidates, or pundits (like me) are focused right now on the midterms, and that's as it should be, frankly. The 2026 midterms will doubtless be some of the most consequential midterm elections in the history of the republic, and that's for sure and for certain.
But, just as in military circles it's considered prudent to have a plan for any eventuality, Republicans has better have a plan, not only for the midterms, but for the 2028 presidential election. Right now it looks as though Vice President Vance has a pretty good lock on the nomination, and if you ask me, Secretary of State Marco Rubio would make a great running mate. But that brings up the question, who can they expect to face?
At least one old veteran Democrat operative, a member of the old school, has a warning for national Democrats: Don't select a candidate from the nutcase wing of the party.
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and his co-host Al Hunt offered their takes this week on why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., will not be a viable contender for the 2028 election.
While Hunt and Carville are both staunch Democrats, they have warned time and time again that the party needs to shift away from far-left policies and social agendas if it wants to win elections.
When one listener noted increasing talk of Ocasio-Cortez’s prospects as a 2028 contender, asking if America is ready for a female president, Hunt offered a 2-pronged answer.
"I don't think AOC will be the nominee or the next president. I think she is a formidable communicator and figure. The Democratic Party is not a left-wing party," he first answered. "Republicans love to paint Mamdani and look at others, and they'll pick the new Washington mayor as a socialist, but the Democratic Party is a mainstream progressive party and AOC will be a force, but she's not going to be that kind of a force."
There's a fair amount of cognitive dissonance going on there. AOC is anything but a formidable communicator; she is inarticulate and ill-informed. And, I would argue, there is no such thing as a "mainstream progressive" party. But who are the most likely candidates? Who might a Vance/Rubio, or Vance/DeSantis, or Vance/whoever ticket face?
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I'm going to venture three names here, based on nothing more than my own guesswork: Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC (NY-14), former vice president and 2024 candidate Kamala Harris, and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
First, AOC. She's broadly popular in the Democratic Party right now, which tells you a lot about how far the Democrats have sunk since the days of Harry Truman. She's young and, frankly, rather attractive. She's not an effective speaker, though, and her ability to speak extemporaneously is essentially nil. She's abysmally ignorant on all matters economic, in large part because she has spent too much time learning from that daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). But she has a strong following on the loony-tunes wing of the Democratic caucus. Would that be enough to put her in place as the nominee?
Second, Kamala Harris. There has not been a more inarticulate presidential candidate in our history than the former vice president, and yet, the nearly-fossilized Democrat strategist James Carville says about the 2016 election:
"Well, also Hillary lost because of a distributional fluke," Carville replied. "She carried the popular vote relatively easily, and she had bad distribution, bad turnout. Harris did not lose because she was a female. She did not lose because she was a female, a non-White female."
The popular vote doesn't matter. There is no such thing as an official national popular vote. It's a statistical curiosity and little more. That lack of understanding was a big reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016; Donald Trump read the rule book and she didn't, which explains her ignoring several key Rust Belt states in the campaign. Hillary Clinton is also arrogant, entitled, and shrill, attributes that Kamala Harris may well have in even greater measure. And that's why a Harris nomination would truly be doubling down on stupid, but that doesn't mean Democrats might not be able to resist the "woman of color" argument that, for them, trumps (hah) any other consideration.
Finally, California's impeccably coiffed Governor Newsom. Gavin Newsom has two huge strikes against him as far as the Democrat nomination goes: He's a man (only just) and he's white. But then, state governors have generally done better in presidential elections than members of Congress, so that may be his one big advantage. Also, unlike the others, he clearly wants the job.
What do all three have in common? They are all creatures of the far left. There are few, if any, moderates left in today's Democratic Party, apart from Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) who regularly delivers stinging rebukes of the far-left, but he's one voice in a big left-wing wilderness.
Honestly, and loathe as I am to offer advice to an opponent, the smart play for Democrats now would be to beg someone like Joe Manchin to come out of retirement with the plea, "Please, Joe, save us!" But that would require national Democrats now to have a modicum of good sense; that assumes facts not in evidence.
Stay tuned. This is a very, very early look at the field. Things will doubtless change, but that doesn't make wargaming the field any less fun now.
