Political strategists are not yet sold that Democrats rumored to be prospective 2028 presidential candidates have all that it takes to unite the party and retake the White House.
Failed 2024 candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a handful of Democrat governors — Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Wes Moore of Maryland — are all thought to be potentially sizing up runs for the White House in 2028 as Democrats try to fight their way out of the political wilderness. Even though there is still plenty of road to go before the campaign kicks off, the prospective candidates could find it quite difficult to unite the party and appeal to enough of America to win back the presidency, pundits told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“We are in what has been referred to as the ‘invisible primary’ phase of the election cycle, because it is so early and the public isn’t paying attention to these early machinations,” Len Foxwell, a Maryland-based Democratic strategist, told the DCNF. “The only ones who are participating in the process at this point are the prospective candidates themselves and a relatively small and insular ecosystem of donors and party activists and elected officials who do this sort of thing, either as a passion or as a profession. It’s a very small and limited process right now, but it’s definitely happening.” (RELATED: Tim Walz Appears To Snipe At Any Kamala Harris 2028 Ambitions)
Tim Walz speaks onstage during 2025 SXSW Conference and Festival at the Austin Convention Center on March 8, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images)
Recent polling generally indicates that Democrat voters are by far most eager to see Harris reprise her role as the party’s standard-bearer, followed distantly by Buttigieg and Newsom while the rest of the field draws lower levels of support, according to Newsweek. While most Democratic politicos may not be quick to highlight flaws or challenges that could inhibit each candidate, Adolph Mongo, a Michigan-based Democratic commentator and consultant, did not pull any punches.
“A bunch of losers,” Mongo told the DCNF in regard to many of the hot names being mentioned in connection to possible 2028 runs. “I’m looking for someone who’s gonna be more realistic, and who’s going to be able to not only dish it out, but be able to take it. The Democrats, they ran a spineless 2024 campaign, they let Republicans create the narrative, and they never responded to it.”
“Harris made the biggest boo-boo, with the pick from Minnesota, good, nice guy, a good governor. But they needed somebody that’s going to be a bulldog that can attract new voters,” Mongo said, referencing Walz. “You know, they just dropped the ball on several issues, one on immigration, two on transgender rights. Three, they took their base for granted, black voters, Hispanic voters, they just did everything wrong. And the biggest boo-boo was they knew that the president, two or three years ago, should have just been a one term guy, and they didn’t do anything and waited too late … they might as well have just left him in.”
Beshear, who was reportedly vetted alongside Whitmer and others as a possible addition to the 2024 Democrat ticket after former President Joe Biden’s candidacy imploded, sniped at Newsom Thursday for having right-wing populist firebreather Steve Bannon on his new program in comments that found their way into reports from liberal media outlets.
Walz, another governor with a left-wing record in his state, is also seemingly feeling out the waters for a run of his own by embarking upon a national town hall tour focusing on vulnerable House Republican districts. Notably, Walz’s first stop will be in Iowa, which happens to be one of the most important primary battleground states. (RELATED: Harris ‘Loved’ Walz’s Record Despite ‘Abject Failure’ On 2020 Riots, Stringent Covid Policies And More)
Then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Foxwell said he believes each of the names floating around as possible contenders would have a path to victory, and that some Democrats — including Newsom — are reorienting themselves on issues like protecting women’s sports and tacking away from hardline positions to potentially broaden their appeal. However, the primary field figures to be “all over the map” given the general state of disarray the party is currently in, Foxwell added.
“Gavin Newsom, for instance, is kind of bucking the the prevalent body of opinion within the Democratic Party establishment on the issue of transgender women playing women’s sports, for instance, and Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is emphasizing cooperation and collaboration on a strategic basis with the White House, so you’re seeing some of that,” Foxwell told the DCNF. “But I don’t think there’s going to be a singular approach within this primary field, because I don’t think there’s a singular approach in the Democratic Party for how we move forward. I think that we, as a party, are still all over the map on what happened in 2024 and how we should position ourselves at the approach of 2028. I think you’re going to see that uncertainty and lack of cohesiveness of opinion in the presidential primary fields.”
Newsom recently launched a podcast program in which he frequently hosts right-of-center guests to discuss life and politics, making waves in an early March episode with Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk in which Newsom said that allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports — something that most elected Democrats support and defend vigorously — is indeed “deeply unfair.” It remains to be seen whether Newsom’s viral comments about that unfairness will stick with the voting public given that Newsom’s record as California governor is loaded with radical policies on transgender issues, as well as left-wing positions on energy, public health care and more.
Moore could emerge as one candidate to watch to fill the party’s “aspirational lane,” typified by former President Barack Obama’s 2008 run, according to Foxwell, who shared his view that Emmanuel is too closely-linked to an era of American politics that has come and gone. And while Newsom seems to be triangulating to best position himself for 2028, Foxwell personally thinks Newsom would be a bad pick for Democrats because the California governor “embodies every worst negative stereotype of the modern Democratic Party” and “represents the privileged and affluent coastal elite who have virtually no connective tissue to working-class men and women in the battleground states who ultimately determine the outcome of presidential elections.”
Buttigieg, for his part, recently opted against running for governor or senate in Michigan in the 2026 cycle, fueling speculation that he is sizing up 2028 after he came up well short in the 2020 Democrat primaries. However, Buttigieg’s highest level of public service was as a member of the highly-unpopular Biden administration, and veteran political journalist Mark Halperin speculated Thursday that Buttigieg’s short stature and sexual orientation may hurt him with voters. (RELATED: Democratic Committees Set To Launch Town Hall Tour Of Republican Districts After Party’s Brutal 2024 Losses)
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro speak to the press while making a stop at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. (Photo by Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images)
Jon McHenry, vice president of North Star Opinion Research and a GOP polling analyst, said there’s one participant in the “invisible primary” that currently stands out to him as most capable of taking down a Republican in a general election.
“I think Josh Shapiro is the Democrat most likely to beat a Republican in 2028,” McHenry told the DCNF. “The way he’s governed in Pennsylvania, which maybe wouldn’t win him a nomination on the Republican side, has still been pretty effective. He just seems like he has an ear for essentially the middle of the state of Pennsylvania, which is also essentially an ear for the middle of the country, in a way that a lot of Democrats don’t seem to have. You know, Tim Walz is the perfect example. He’s from Minnesota, he looks like your football coach, and he’s just as completely out of touch as you can be, whereas Josh Shapiro actually seems like he gets it.”
The issue for Shapiro, as McHenry sees it, could be that the very things that would make him a potentially formidable general election opponent may not appeal to Democrat primary voters.
“You can imagine two, three years down the road in early polling, him against J.D. Vance, or whomever Republicans nominate. I think he’s going to be super competitive, but I don’t know that he’s going to be that competitive in a Democratic primary,” McHenry told the DCNF. “In a sense, some of the folks who’ve already run for federal office have an advantage in running to the primary, because they’ve already tacked fairly hard to the left to win that primary, and it’s just a different consideration. If you’re a successful governor, you probably aren’t like the crazy left-wing, pro-Hamas crowd on the Democrat side, and frankly, a lot of the successful governors on the Republican side aren’t like the MAGA folks.”
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