The Race for 2028 Has Already Started

2028 is a L-O-N-G way away, but there are already some interesting developments starting to form on the political horizon, some of which have both state and national implications.

In the presidential race, a lot depends on how Donald Trump fares during the remaining three-plus years of his second term. If he leaves office with approval ratings above 50%, the Republican nomination is probably JD Vance’s for the taking. But if President Trump is underwater in the polls, some potential rivals will sense an opening and be sure to throw their hats in the ring.

Chief among them is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who, due to term limits, will vacate the governor’s mansion in January 2027 with no place to go. He won’t run against Sen. Ashley Moody when she comes up for election in 2026, because he just appointed her in January to fill Marco Rubio’s unexpired term; and he can’t run for Sen. Rick Scott’s seat until 2030 because the 72-year-old Scott was just re-elected in 2024. That leaves DeSantis with very few options other than to make a second run for the White House. Otherwise, he will have to wait until 2032 at the earliest when he will be a still-young 54 years old but having been out of office (and the public eye) for five long years.

Others who may join the fray include second-timers Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Tim Scott, but I’m more inclined to think they will sit tight in the Senate and allow a couple of the younger bucks to have a go at it, specifically Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both of whom have very strong upsides. Marco Rubio could also use his position as Secretary of State as a springboard to the nomination, but only if Vance isn’t the automatic frontrunner.

On the Democrat side, the big question is whether the party will continue its pathological death march to the Progressive left or lurch back towards the more “moderate” center, which is still pretty radical. If they really want to win – and common sense prevails – look for the Dems to anoint either Gavin Newsom of California or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan as their nominee with both Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky also in the mix. Historically, governors do better with voters than senators… and once elected, they usually govern better, too.

Another potentially interesting race is the one for Chuck Schumer’s senate seat in 2028. Schumer, the current Senate minority leader, is up for re-election that year and a recent poll by the liberal firm Data for Progress shows him trailing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in a potential match-up by a 55%-36% margin. That’s not good news for Chuckie, who seems to have lost his mojo – and much of his clout – at the age of 74.

Stay tuned, folks. There is still a lot of runway between now and November 7, 2028, but presidential campaigns don’t take off overnight. Potential candidates are already jockeying for position while collecting promissory notes from deep-pocketed donors. Can forming exploratory committees be far behind?

How I long for the days when candidates announced for the presidency at the beginning of the year in which the election was actually held. I am currently reading Countdown 1960 by Chris Wallace, which recounts the 1960 presidential race between Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy didn’t announce his candidacy until January 2, 1960, at a press conference in the Senate caucus room. As for Nixon, he never did declare his candidacy. It was just assumed that as the sitting vice president, he was the heir apparent to President Dwight Eisenhower, who was still popular after eight years in office. When New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller decided not to enter the race, the nomination was Nixon’s by default.

I know we will never return to those simpler times, let alone the days when it was thought unseemly for a person to actually campaign for the presidency. Somehow, William McKinley was elected in 1896 by sitting home in Canton, Ohio and hosting scores of visitors in his unconventional but highly successful (and dirt-cheap) “Front Porch Campaign”. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan, spent $500,000 on a cross-country whistlestop campaign that drew large crowds but not enough votes.

Ironically, Richard Nixon ended his unsuccessful 1960 campaign with a whistlestop train tour of his own, visiting small towns across America’s heartland in a last-ditch effort to win the presidency, a prize that eluded him that November but which he eventually claimed eight years later.

Who wins in 2028 – and how they do it – should prove interesting to say the least.