President Donald Trump‘s second term has just started, but Democrats are already fired up at the prospect of the 2028 presidential contest, and some are quietly making moves to position themselves for a run.
The Democratic Party has struggled to coalesce around a unifying message to fight against Trump’s second-term agenda, but the contest, which is still nearly four years away, is a welcome prospect for a party hoping to move on from the disastrous results of 2024.
“Any Democrat that I vote for in 2028, I want them to be making noise right now,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns. “I want them to be building up state party infrastructures and using their resources and times to help either the state that they’re serving or the party.”
Topping the list of 2028 hopefuls at the moment are a host of Democratic governors, most notably Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), but also figures like Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Wes Moore (D-MD), Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Andy Beshear (D-KY), and JB Pritzker (D-IL).
While a governor might seem like a natural candidate for president, the Democratic Party has not run a sitting governor at the top of its ticket since Bill Clinton of Arkansas in 1992. The GOP, meanwhile, placed current or former governors atop its ticket in 2000, 2004, and 2012, and many on the Right feel that Trump fits the mold as the chief executive of a sprawling business empire.
“Democrats should take a good hard look at the governors,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “I think it would be helpful if we had a nominee who wasn’t deeply exposed to the Beltway.”
As the Democratic Party seeks new leadership, the experience of a top executive working far from Washington, D.C., might look attractive, and of the gaggle of governors generating buzz, California’s Newsom has long been the buzziest.
Newsom has dominated the 2028 discussion for years, taking out ads in Florida and debating Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in what was widely seen as a presidential warmup act back in 2023. He’s now hosting conservatives on his new podcast and suggesting that transgender participation in sports is “deeply unfair” in what could be a pivot to the center ahead of a possible run.
Conservative media personality Charlie Kirk, who was the first guest on Newsom’s podcast, warned Republicans to be on guard against him, writing that the California governor “has a shark’s instincts and is hoping that voters will have a goldfish’s memory.”
Newsom is far from assured of victory if he does enter the 2028 fray, however. Pritzker, another top blue state governor, has a stop scheduled in early primary state New Hampshire and is being coy about his political future.
“I will be in this fight,” he told reporters on Thursday. “I have always been, as you know, an active participant in issues that matter to me, and the Trump presidency is attacking virtually everything I believe in. So whether I’m in office or I’m not in office, or what office I am serving in, I will always be in this fight.”
While Newsom and Pritzker represent solid blue territory, figures like Shapiro, Whitmer, and Beshear can claim cross-party appeal for representing states that Trump won. Whoever wins will likely be able to reshape the party as it looks to create a new identity over the next few years.
“The problem with the Democrats right now is that they cannot get together and come up with a message,” said Sasha Tirador, a Florida-based Democratic strategist. “The 2028 race will really depend on where we are as Americans four years from now. Right now, we’re not in a good place.”
The possible contenders
While few Democratic senators outside of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) are drawing much 2028 speculation, a handful of figures from outside of the upper chamber, and some from outside of politics completely, are drawing nascent interest.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has established herself as a strong voice for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and is a near-constant presence in political news cycles. At 35, she would be an enormous swing away from the recent bipartisan trend of nominating figures in their 60s and 70s.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has called for generational change in Democratic leadership going forward, and even Trump suggested Ocasio-Cortez should “keep trying” after she failed to secure the top Democratic position on the influential House Oversight Committee.
At the opposite end of the nontraditional spectrum is former first lady Michelle Obama, 61, who continues to top the presidential wish list for some on the Left. Similar to Newsom, Obama recently announced she is launching a podcast, giving her a public platform during Trump’s second term.
Another outsider drawing lots of speculation is Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, 2020 presidential candidate, and secretary of transportation. Buttigieg announced this week that he won’t run for Senate in his adopted home state of Michigan, opening up a 2028 path should he choose to pursue it.
Buttigieg won the 2020 Iowa caucus and made a habit of appearing on Fox News during his run at the Transportation Department. But his tenure in the Biden administration proved controversial, and he has never held elected office above the local level.
For those looking for a true political outsider in the mold of Trump, there is the outspoken ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith.
Smith, 57, has a huge audience thanks to his decades on television, similar to Trump’s lengthy run on The Apprentice prior to his 2016 campaign, and wields an authentic and entertaining style that keeps him in the headlines.
He has repeatedly called out the Democratic Party since Trump’s election, saying it needs to find a new direction.
“If you’re the Democratic Party and you lost 49.8% to 48.3% and you’re looking at that 1.5% difference, that’s an excuse to say, ‘What we did really wasn’t that bad. We should continue to do that.’ No, don’t continue to do that. Find a new strategy,” Smith said on ABC’s The View. “In the end, what it comes down to is this, the American people, in their eyes, it wasn’t about him. They were voting against what the Democrats were throwing in their direction.”
Smith fueled some of the 2028 speculation himself, saying in February that “the Democratic Party looks so pathetic after this election, I might entertain running.”
The issues
What may matter as much as the candidate is the message they send out on the campaign trail.
In 2024, Trump pushed hard against “wokeness” on the Left, most notably with his now infamous commercial saying, “Kamala [Harris] is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
That commercial largely centered on Harris’s strong support for transgender issues, something Newsom is already distancing himself from. The Democratic National Committee has also signaled it is ready to focus more on the economy and less on identity, with new DNC Chairman Ken Martin writing that the Democratic Party “always has been and always will be the party of the worker.”
“I believe the canary in the coal mine for what happened on Nov. 5 was the recent showing that, for the first time in modern history, Americans now see the Republicans as the party of the working class and Democrats as the party of the elites,” Martin wrote. “As the Trump agenda fails our nation’s working communities, we have to take seriously the job of repairing and restoring the perceptions of our party and our brand.”
Five Democrats in prime position to be face of the party in 2028
Tirador, the Democratic strategist, agreed, saying voters of all stripes want to hear about the economy.
“The middle class is what makes this country great. This country has always been great at giving people a shot at the American dream, and the middle class is disappearing in this country,” she said. “I want to hear about how we’re going to get back and grow the middle class.”
Mabinty Quarshie contributed to this story.
