On the menu today: The Democrats have their 2028 presidential primary schedule almost finalized, featuring a trio of new states in the first six, and the early sense is that Republicans will stick with the familiar lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. It might seem early to be thinking about the 2028 presidential primaries, but if you’re one of the candidates, you must prioritize, and as Yogi Berra said, “It gets late early out there.” Read on.
Primary Concern
As noted at the tail end of yesterday’s edition of this newsletter, over in the Washington Post, I examined the Democratic National Committee’s proposed, and likely to be final, schedule for the Democratic 2028 presidential primaries:
- South Carolina, January 22, 2028
- Nevada, February 1, 2028
- New Hampshire, February 8, 2028
- New Mexico, February 15, 2028
- Michigan, February 22, 2028
- Virginia, February 29, 2028
One week after that, March 7, will likely be Super Tuesday, the earliest date that the other states can schedule their primaries or caucuses. States that are likely to hold their primaries that day include Alabama, Arkansas, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Vermont.
That’s a promising early schedule if you’re a candidate on the establishment side among the Democrats, and a rougher one if you’re a socialist or affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America. Based upon Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s past performances, South Carolina and Virginia are rough territory, Nevada and New Hampshire are friendly territory, and it’s a little hard to say about New Mexico and Michigan.
New Mexico, a newcomer to the early primary schedule, doesn’t have a lot of DSA-affiliated Democratic officeholders. The only one I can find in the state legislature is Representative Eleanor Chavez; New Mexico has 42 state senators and 70 state representatives, and Democrats control both chambers. The DSA has recently endorsed New Mexico State Senator Harold Pope Jr., who may become the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor.
As for Michigan, we’ll see how DSA favorite Abdul El-Sayed performs in the Democratic Senate primary August 4.
(El-Sayed is in trouble for saying of Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman, “Ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message.” Come on, Abdul, we’re trying to convince people that not every Muslim wants to behead people, and now you’re running around promising to cut off the head of a U.S. senator and put it on a pike. Stop living down to those negative stereotypes!)
It’s been fascinating to see the objections to that Post column so far. Some argued that the selection of states isn’t tilted against a socialist candidate, because it adds up to two bad ones, two good ones, and two that are tough to tell. As I mentioned in the column — reading is fundamental, kids — the number of delegates at stake in the “good” states is much lower than the “bad” states or “tough to tell” states. Sure, a socialist candidate could win in Nevada and New Hampshire, but in terms of the number of delegates at stake, those are the least valuable states. A candidate who finishes at or near the top in those other four states has a very good chance of being the Democratic nominee in 2028.
For those who argue it’s too early to discuss this, if you’re a 2028 presidential contender, you need a strategy for those early states, and the sooner the better. Very few candidates will have the resources to spend a lot of money in all six; California Governor Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris would be likely exceptions. And even if you have copious financial resources and staff and a gargantuan advertising budget, every presidential campaign is limited by one finite resource: the candidate’s time. A candidate can’t be in two states at once; campaigns are going to have to prioritize.
If your campaign flops in the first states, it is exceptionally hard to come back and win anywhere on Super Tuesday. Winning begets winning, momentum begets momentum.
When I say a socialist or DSA-affiliated candidate, I am mostly thinking of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; she is, at least on paper, the early frontrunner in New Hampshire, and Axios ranks her as the candidate who is second-most-likely to win the nomination, behind Harris.
Some racial essentialists argue that it is absurd to contend that heavily white New Hampshire is likely to be supportive of the Puerto Rican AOC. First, a University of New Hampshire survey conducted this month not only found her with a one-point lead over Pete Buttigieg, but 64 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the state said they felt favorable about her, with just 9 percent saying they felt unfavorable about her; only Buttigieg and Sanders had comparable numbers. (At 84 years old, Sanders is not running in 2028; if AOC runs, Sanders is widely expected to endorse her.)
Also note, “Primary exit polling this year suggests that DSA candidates run best among young, college-educated and higher-income demographics.” In 2020 (the last time Democrats had a competitive presidential primary in New Hampshire), 54 percent of their primary voters had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Forty percent of Democratic primary voters reported a salary of $100,000 per year or more, and 72 percent made $50,000 per year or more.
Certain people continue to believe that labeling a candidate affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America like AOC a “socialist” is “name-calling.” I am afraid there is no other way to say this: People who make this argument are kind of dumb.
Finally, as noted on X yesterday, if I were a Democrat and wanted to put together a ticket that gave me the best odds of getting to 270 electoral votes, I might go with Pennsylvania Senator Josh Shapiro and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. The 53-year-old Shapiro has been elected statewide twice in Pennsylvania, and he’s probably going to win big again this November. The 39-year-old Ossoff is probably going to win big in Georgia this year, too. Nominate a ticket of those two, and you almost certainly take 37 electoral votes out of the Republican pile and put them into the Democratic one.
Of course, we know neither one could end up on the 2028 ticket. Democrats really want to win the presidency . . . but not if they must nominate a Jewish guy to do it.
As for the Republicans, nothing is set in stone yet, but it’s likely to be a familiar presidential primary schedule. Josh Putnam writes:
Reporting thus far has indicated that the GOP has adopted and appears to be sticking with a calendar rules package that is more traditional than that of their Democratic counterparts. In other words, the assumption has been that the Republican National Committee is very likely to sign off on and stick with the traditional lineup of early state contests: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Notice that if you’re an Iowa Republican, you remain extremely important to your party’s presidential selection process; if you’re an Iowa Democrat, you’re nothing special anymore.
Conversely, if you’re a New Mexico or Virginia Democrat, you just became much more important; if you’re a New Mexico or Virginia Republican . . . you’re just another state in the middle somewhere.
You could argue that the Republican Party hasn’t had a competitive presidential primary since the Indiana primary on May 3, 2016. Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich kept splitting the non-Trump vote, and the GOP has been a cult of personality around Trump ever since. There was a brief period when it looked like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might really give Trump a challenge, but after a deeply disappointing performance in the Iowa caucuses, DeSantis dropped out. Nikki Haley’s campaign was largely a symbolic protest.
A whole lot of Republicans are eager to talk about the prospects of a 2028 GOP presidential primary featuring Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and perhaps some other options. (I suspect this reflects a not-so-subtle exhaustion with Donald Trump dominating every aspect of our political discussions since he descended the escalator at Trump Tower June 16, 2015. We have entered the twelfth year of the Trump era.)
For what it’s worth, Rubio has said he doesn’t want to challenge Vance for the nomination. “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair late last year.
Rubio could change his mind, of course. But at least for now, Vance has a solid lead nationally and a ten-point lead in New Hampshire. If you’re Vance, you’re never going to have a better opportunity to win the presidency than 2028, even if Trump limps to the end of his term with lousy job approval numbers. (CNN finds this morning that 73 percent of U.S. adults say Trump isn’t paying enough attention to the country’s most serious problems.) Vance has the inside track for the nomination, and during most cycles the presidential race is a roughly 50-50 jump ball. Nothing gets easier, or more likely, by waiting until 2032.
The Marco Rubio of 2027-2028 would probably be a better presidential candidate than the one of 2015-2016. Rubio is a smoother, more experienced political figure, capable of genuinely Reagan-esque heights in his rhetoric. And as the endless variations of his personal meme demonstrate, he’s seen as a relentless hard worker, willing to do the dirty work that no one else wants to do.
But Republicans are, instinctively, a primogeniture party. (Almost literally; the third highest-polling option in that RealClearPolitics chart is Donald Trump Jr., at 11.8 percent.) If 2028 is perceived as Vance’s turn, a lot of Republicans will intuitively want to give the nomination to Vance.
A lot can change between now and when the first ballots get cast in the 2028 primary. But that process will start early, almost immediately after the midterm elections. (Four years ago, Trump announced his campaign a week after the midterms.)
ADDENDUM: Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation writes of Zohran Mamdani, “This mayoral administration is improving life for everyday New Yorkers through a politics of joy.”
You know, I remember right around this time two years ago, everyone from the New York Times to NPR to New York magazine to the Chicago Sun-Times to The 19th telling me that Kamala Harris was the embodiment of “the politics of joy” or some variation of that phrase. That didn’t work out all that great for her, now, did it?