If President Donald Trump decides to abide by the Constitution in at least one respect, the 2028 Republican nomination for president looks to be Vice President J.D. Vance's to lose.
That leaves most of the tea leaf-reading to the Democrats, with a few gaggles of candidates eyeing a run.
Jeff Robbins
Congressman Ro Khanna of California and Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland have telegraphed their strategy for winning support from the progressive wing of the Democratic primary base. The bad news for them is that they are all competing in the same lane. The good news is that it is a very wide lane indeed, and the one richest in small donors, Hollywood endorsements, avid if not rabid activists and social media cover.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, fresh from her "Let me diss positively everybody" book tour, has a legitimate claim to be the most qualified to be president by dint of her four years as vice president. She is the most prominent Black leader in a field that may or may not see Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey jump in. Black voters are the single most potent constituency in the Democratic Party.
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There's also an emotional appeal to replacing Trump with the candidate he defeated. But in their gut, many Democrats share the queasiness that an even greater percentage of independents have about Harris, whose penchant for performative-seeming word salad and whose tendency to look gravitas-challenged lost her the election in 2024.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she's not running. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is as inspirational as a slab of asphalt, and as a billionaire, seems ill-positioned to make the affordability case that resonates with Americans.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is a charismatic candidate who has successfully countered Trump's bid to maintain GOP control of Congress by gerrymandering Texas with a corresponding countermove in California. And he has delighted Democrats by effectively mocking Trump at every turn.
Newsom is good-looking and his hair is great. But will he come off as too slick? Will skeletons in his closet (an affair with his campaign manager's wife, the indictment of his former chief of staff) rattle and how loudly?
Two potential candidates reside in whatever moderate lane still exists among Democratic primary voters. These are Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and former a-whole-lot-of-things Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. Both, coincidentally or not coincidentally, are Jewish. Both are disinclined.
Of the two, while Shapiro has a strong record in Pennsylvania and is popular there. Emanuel, who lacks a political or geographic base, may be the more interesting candidate. A three-term U.S. congressman, White House chief of staff under former President Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago for eight years and U.S. ambassador to Japan under former President Joe Biden, his multi-faceted experience enables him to argue compellingly that his preparedness for the presidency exceeds that of anyone save Harris.
Emanuel's natural instinct for and skills at verbal combat are second to none of his rivals, and his willingness to freely engage with conservative interlocutors such as "Fox & Friends" and Megyn Kelly -- and even to critique Democratic orthodoxies -- could set him apart from the pack. But he is already facing the hyped-up wrath of supporters of U.S. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. They would sooner see Trump 3.0 than have a Democratic president disinclined to kowtow to them.
"I'm not a member of any organized party," Will Rogers famously quipped. "I'm a Democrat."
The 2028 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination isn't going to be pretty.
Robbins is a former assistant U.S. attorney specializing in the First Amendment. He wrote this for Creators.
