Who's Up and Who's Down in the (Way Too Early) 2028 Democratic Primary

0:00Hello and happy Friday from Newsweek headquarters at the top of the World Trade Center in New York City. This is the 1600 and I am Carlo Versano. This country was stone cold dead. So we're coming on today. We don't have a guest today. Well, I guess we do kind of have a guest. We're here with producer Mickey, who is now in front of the camera as opposed to being behind as she usually is. I prefer it that way. Yeah, I know you do. Frankly, I do, too. I don't like being on camera either. You owe me. I know I do. That's OK. So we're we're coming on today because we want to do a little bit of 2028 Democratic power rankings.

0:33The election doesn't seem like it's coming up, but trust me, it is. It'll be here before you know it. I know we still have the midterms to get through, but this is about the time when people really start to pay attention to this. And we have a wide field of potential candidates who will likely, probably, maybe jump into the race to succeed. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. So, Mickey, you are going to give us a list of the 10 or 11 candidates who are mostly in the mix, we think, at least whether they – no one's declared yet. But these are the people who we can safely assume are at least eyeing the Democratic nomination.

1:10So, yeah, let's talk Democrats today. OK. What do you think about Kamala Comeback? Kamala Harris. Yeah. No. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ms. Harris, no disrespect to you if by some miracle you end up seeing this, but absolutely not. Please, for the love of everything, do not run for president again. I mean, she already lost, right, which is kind of a big problem. She would be the first person nominated after losing as the nominee since Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s if she ran again. And, you know, her campaign in 2024 was bad.

1:53I mean, she, you know, granted, she was given, I believe the technical term of art is a sandwich by her boss, Joe Biden. But she just she did not prove her mettle in that in that, you know, truncated race. Also, she's from California. And one of my rules of thumb, which I've written in the newsletter many times, is no California Democrats for national office ever, no matter how talented they are. She's frankly not particularly politically talented. So, no, her ranking is – she would be bad in a primary. She would be a terrible candidate in a general election. I think she would lose to anybody you picked out of the phone book to be honest.

2:33On the note of California candidates, Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom has admitted that he is learning disabilities. Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. So Newsom obviously is the tops right now. All the polls have him leading the informal primary race. He is basically the frontrunner, at least at this moment. And he's been super aggressive, right? He's out there giving the fight to Trump on social media. You know, I don't particularly like his style, but it works for a lot of people, which is why he's pulling where he is. He's got a massive donor base in California.

3:13He had this big redistricting win in November that, you know, we're now seeing sort of the results of happening in states like Virginia. So, you know, the fact that the Democrats won this redistricting, you know, battle with the Republicans the way they have speaks to his political acumen because he was the first Democrat to really, you know, to really go for it. with this ballot initiative. That being said, what I just said with Kamala, he's from California. I mean, it's just if you run a California Democrat for national office, you're just giving the Republic, you're writing the Republican attack ads for them.

3:47I mean, you know, California is an amazing state. It's a great state. I have family there. I love visiting. It is a extraordinarily poorly run state, especially given its wealth and its tax base. You know, the ads, if Newsom were the nominee, would just be pictures of the homelessness crisis in San Francisco, the various horrific crimes that have happened in some of California big cities, the wildfires that wiped out an entire neighborhood of Los Angeles last year, which, again, none of these things are directly Gavin Newsom's fault, but he's been the governor of the state for a long time. So he's got a pretty big track record that Republicans will certainly, you know, pick apart.

4:34I also, I don't even, right now it looks like he might win a primary, but a lot of progressives don't like this guy. They sort of see right through him. And he's also got the baggage from COVID, right? I mean, he, you know, when he went to the French laundry during the height of, you know, the lockdowns, like that sort of hypocrisy matters to voters, I think, even if it's, you know, years past. And again, you could look at, you know, somebody like Donald Trump, he's a hypocrite, like he said, he wasn't going to go to war, and now we're in war with Rand. Yes, that is true. Look at Donald Trump's approval rating, right?

5:04It's touching the lower 30s now. So no, sorry to Gavin Newsom. He's a great campaigner. He's a talented politician. And again, let's just be clear. This is not who I want to be president or I don't want to have the nominee. This is about their electability, both in the primary and in the general election. That's an important point. And Newsom could and probably will, at least if it were tomorrow, win the Democratic primary. He would probably almost certainly lose a general election. So I think he is, I just say no. Okay, no to gruesome Newsom. Grusome Gavin. What about Mayor Pete? Hey guys, sorry for interrupting, but we have a quick ad break right now and we'll be right back.

5:49Buttigieg is an interesting one. You know, I've, my thoughts on this guy change a lot. He's a really good fundraiser. He's got really good credentials, right? He was a Rhodes Scholar. He went to Harvard. He was in the Navy. He was in Biden's cabinet, which actually would probably hurt him. And he is a really good debater. He is just he's really polished. He's really good on the stump. I'm not only running to defeat Donald Trump. I am running to prepare for the day that begins when Donald Trump has left office to launch the era that must come after Trump. That era must be characterized not by exclusion, but by belonging.

6:29And so must our campaign. Really good at going into the lion's den of Fox News and conservative media and, you know, making his point and coming across well, which is a really important political talent to have, especially in sort of the social media age. You know, his win in Iowa in 2020 shows that he has some sort of ground game. That being said, he was the head of the transportation department during the Biden administration. So he would have to answer to – for things like that, that train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, the air traffic meltdown at the FAA, the baby formula shortage from back then, which people probably have memory hold at this point.

7:11All of those things will come back to bite him. he's also I mean I'm going to say this and I'll get in trouble for saying it but he has zero literally zero support among black voters I'm not just making that up there have been polls that show he pulls at zero percent black voters obviously a very important part of the you know democratic base there's I think there's several reasons I mean he's gay right I mean he's openly gay. I think that that matters because many black people are socially conservative, particularly in the South for the Democrats, are church-going, socially conservative, older women, older men, and they might not want to vote for a gay man.

7:55And that's not to say that black voters wouldn't vote for a gay person, I don't think. But I think that Buttigieg has not done enough to show that voting bloc that he would be fighting for them in the way that, you know, Joe Biden did over the course of his decades-long career, which is why he was able to win black voters. You know, he's also sort of like, he's kind of like a poster boy for, you know, technocratic, sort of like establishment, centrist, all things that frankly I like, right? I think it gets a bad rap in, you know, democratic and liberal circles being a sort of like technocrat, coastal elitist.

8:33He's He's actually not a coastal lease. He's from Indiana. I think he lives in Michigan now. But those are also important points with Pete, right? He might come across as a carpetbagger. He moved from Indiana to Michigan. The only elected office he's ever held is mayor of South Bend, which has a population of like – I don't know what. There's probably more people in this office building than wherever his actual constituents. So yeah, I think Buttigieg would be a good vice presidential candidate. I just I don't think he would make it through a primary. OK. What about Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro?

9:09So Shapiro is I think he's dead in the water and I'll tell you why. I think you can probably guess. He volunteered for the Israeli Defense Forces. You know, he's he it's not that he's Jewish. I don't think that that's actually material to his ability to win an election. But I think that volunteering for the IDF, volunteering for the IDF, I should say, and being among the most pro-Israel voices in his party is just a death knell in a Democratic primary. While you were being vetted to be Kamala Harris's running mate, you were asked, have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government? Yes. I mean, when you look at some of these numbers, I mean, I printed some of these now.

9:52Fifteen percent of Democrats sympathize with Israel versus 44 percent for the Palestinians. being pro-israel being openly and actively pro-israel um at this moment right given is israel's behavior as a country over the last several years um both in gaza uh in lebanon and how they along with us are executing this war in iran i think is just uh it you just you you will not be able to get through a primary with that like how would he answer for that how would he answer for volunteering for the IDF. And also, I mean, again, he's a very talented politician. He's pretty moderate. Again, he's a technocrat.

10:32He's sort of like fluent in kitchen table economics. He's had real successes. He's also – nobody in history has won as many votes in the state of Pennsylvania as Josh Shapiro, literally. And Pennsylvania is a must win. So again, I think that if he were to make it through a primary, he would be a formidable general election candidate. But there's just no chance that he's going to make it through a primary. I mean, famous last words, but that's where I stand. Okay. What about Andy Beshear? So Beshear is the governor of Kentucky, Democratic governor of Kentucky, state Trump carried by 30 points, and he's now won it twice, which is the electability argument that the party needs, So he is – he's a very compelling sort of like proof of concept candidate I think.

11:19He's plain smoking. He's warm. He's sort of like good looking. Like there was a photo spread of him and his wife in Vanity Fair recently and it frankly reminded me of the Kennedys. They sort of have that kind of like sheen to them. He has no national recognition. And I mean we're two years out now. Like you got to be – you got to have some name recognition if you want to be the president of the United States in two years. So yeah, I mean I think the fact that Bashir is still at this stage fairly unknown to sort of normie voters. He hasn't really had a breakout media moment yet. He doesn't appear to have sort of like the infrastructure in place in some of the early states to have a ground game.

12:00And he's never really been tested under sort of like the national microscope. So I think he looks like a president. He sounds like a president. you never really hear from the guy. He doesn't rock the boat in any way. So I think that hurts him and his ability to, you know, again, it's early, but it's not so early that you shouldn't be at least out there a little bit. And he isn't. So his power rankings, in my view, they were higher than they have been. And now they've come down. I'm soft on Bashir, I'd say. OK. What about J.B. Pritzker? Big J.B., governor of Illinois. I mean, the idea of trading one billionaire hotel scion for a different, just more liberal billionaire hotel scion.

12:46Right. I mean, he's the he's the heir to, I believe, what is it, Hyatt Hotels. Very wealthy, very, you know, has a reputation for being a sort of like competent governor. and governor is the best job, is the best pre-president job to have, right? You don't have this sort of stink of Congress on you. You know, if you're good at your job, you can come across as, again, being sort of like competent, technocratic. He has been pretty good, I think, at sort of like taking the fight to Trump, right? He had that great quote that was like Trump called for him to go to jail. And he was like, I'm standing right here, man.

13:18Come and get me. There's one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump. If you come for my people, you come through me. so come and get me. Like that's the kind of thing that Democratic voters want to see and again he could self-fund essentially his entire campaign. He's a billionaire. I don't know if he would actually do that. He's got the executive governing experience. He's got abortion access. He's had a couple he's been very strong on abortion so that would help him in the primary. But again like this is sort of a populist moment right now both on the left and the right and he's a billionaire so I don't know how he would sort of thread that needle that's a real primary vulnerability um for for big jb uh he also appears to be taking um osempic which is not a knock on him but but yeah but i think that that uh suggests he he he does want to run because honestly i mean if we're talking if we're being serious here you know it's very hard i think to win an election if you're very overweight you know i don't know it's an interesting question could affect i become president in the year of our lord 2028 anything's possible anything's possible, right?

14:24Okay. Next is Georgia Senator John Ossoff. My boy, my guy, John Ossoff is the guy. People, I'm telling you, I've been saying it in the newsletter for weeks. Nobody listens to me. I'm not saying this because I think, I actually don't even really know what his politics are. I don't even know what his policies are. But this is the guy who can win. He can win a primary and he can win a general election. He won a Senate seat in Georgia twice, right, as a sort of like young, not really progressive, but sort of progressive Democrat. That's a state that only recently became competitive. He's young. He's sharp.

15:00He's got good credentials. He's got a pretty big donor network that he's been building. When you look at him on the stump, he sounds like Barack Obama and not in a sort of like annoying way that some of these guys do. Shapiro sort of sounds like Obama too, but it literally sounds like he's doing an Obama impression. Ossoff doesn't sound like he's doing an Obama impression, but he has Obama sort of like, what's the best way of putting that, right? Presence. Yeah, he has sort of like an Obama-esque presence. He sounds more like a preacher. He's an aspiring speaker. He's hopeful. He's hopeful, right?

15:30Again, that matters. History is calling the question, what kind of people are we? And Georgia is ready to answer once again that the measure of our success is not how many of the poorest and most vulnerable families we hunt down and shackle and imprison and deport. The measure of our success is whether each generation achieves greater health and prosperity than the last. In terms of his weaknesses, well, first of all, he's running for re-election in the Senate now, so he has to win in November. If he loses that seat, I think it's basically over for him. I don't think he's going to lose. I think he's going to win, and I think he's going to win big.

16:10And I think if he wins in November by five points more than that. I think you should expect to see John Ossoff's star start to rise a lot. That's the other thing about him. You know, he's not as bad as Bashir in terms of like not having a big national media presence. It's actually one of the things I like about him is that he's not always on cable news, sort of like screaming. It's a very fine line because you have to be out there, right, the way that Newsom is. Newsom's always out there, always doing interviews, right? We've been trying to get Asif on the show for weeks now, and he's – they've just said he's not available.

16:47Now, we're a pretty small ball operation over here, but you'd think that somebody would want to come on and talk about this. Also, very handsome. The guy's a stud. Yeah, I can't deny it. You can't deny it. He's a good-looking guy. This stuff matters, like I said. The fact that he is a young, good-looking guy who also – Georgia, he can turn out black voters, right? He doesn't have the Pete Buttigieg problem, the Josh Shapiro problem. He can turn out black voters. He can turn out rural white voters. He can turn out urban white liberals in cities like Atlanta and where the universities are. He's the full package.

17:27He's got to do a little bit more media. He's got to get himself in front of some cameras and get some, you know, some viral moments. He could come across, I think, a little bit overly polished. But I believe I am a strong believer that that Ossoff is the guy to beat in the primary and the general. All right. What about AOC? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Look, really talented politician. She can fundraise like the best of them. She's got the donor network. She has a big general election liability. She is super polarizing. Right. I mean, if you like I have Fox News up on my desk. So I'm sort of like kind of watching it all day long.

18:09You'd be they're doing a different segment about AOC like every hour. It's crazy. She get you know, she boomer conservatives think that she is literally like the devil incarnate. So, you know, she would I don't. That being said, she would pull in a lot of young voters. I don't think that you should discount her because she's a socialist. I think we've seen at this point now that, again, we're in this sort of like economic populist moment. All bets are off in terms of like what was – what didn't used to be electable and what now is in terms of sort of like economic policy. But again, she's got the rap sheet of defund the police, the Green New Deal, being an actual socialist.

18:53uh so the republican democratic social is fair um so yeah the democratic um the republican you know attack ads really write themselves for her um but again i think that the you know the fact that she can do social media the way that she does that's an underappreciated that's going to be an under undervalued you know um tactic and skill in 2028 we saw with mom donnie in new york But I think that I would give her a low ranking for a in a general election. And I actually don't think she'll run. She's still, you know, she's super young. She's like just turned 35, I think. So, like, why would you? I think it's more likely that she primaries Chuck Schumer in 2028, becomes a senator and then runs down the line.

19:39Look, I think that the chances that AOC is the president in our lifetimes is high, right? At least 50-50. I just don't think yet. What about Mark Kelly?

19:54Look, an astronaut who nursed his congresswoman wife back to health after she was shot in the head in a terrorist attack. The biography is on paper is incredible. Also, combat pilot in the Navy. I mean, again, this guy, his biography was written in a lab for what would be the best possible presidential candidate. That being said, he comes across very stiff. He doesn't really have a lot of natural charisma that I've seen at least. Microgravity just stepped to the brain. Yeah, it does. It shrinks you too, right? I've read that. I don't know. So he's just – he's not really a natural politician. He's not great on the trail.

20:43That being said, I like that he's sort of like a technocrat. He is a moderate Democrat from a swing state, which is very important. But again, that's sort of like a gift and a curse. It's a gift for a general election. It's kind of a curse for a primary because he won't have the ability to sort of like swing left to try and get the progressive dem base as a sort of moderate senator. from a swing state. I think Kelly is VP material more than presidential material, personally. But, you know, look, an impressive guy, for sure. All right, what about Big Gretch? Big Gretch and Whitmer. I was talking to somebody on Subtext, a Michigan voter, reader of the newsletter about Whitmer.

21:28She was saying that Whitmer's been interesting because she's had a much lower profile in the last few months than she had been. And I think she's actually – it seems like she's sort of like actively retreating from the race. But she seems to be pulling back from the national stage for whatever reason, which makes me think that she actually might not want to run for whatever reason. She had a couple big gaffes. She went to the White House and sort of like hid behind the folders. Remember that photo op that went viral? It's like you can't do that. Like either don't go or go and be like, yeah, I'm here because I'm the governor of a state and the president wanted to talk to me or I wanted to ask the president something.

22:06You can't sort of like waffle on stuff like that. And she has sort of like a reputation for working with Trump on certain things, which again, I don't think is a bad thing. It might be a bad thing in a democratic primary though. So the big question is – the question that we have to talk about, again, same with AOC. Can a woman – not can a woman be president. Of course they can and they will one day. Is this the moment to run a woman, right? After the last two elections, the Democrats ran women and lose. I think the party is going to be too scared to put a woman up again. I don't necessarily think that it matters.

22:45I think that Hillary Clinton, I think, lost for a million reasons. I don't think sexism was one of the top. Kamala Harris, again, she lost because she was a bad candidate, not because she was a woman in my personal opinion. So I think that the fact that Whitmer doesn't seem interested probably tells you something. Maybe she doesn't see it in her own polling that she has a path. Another one who would be a good veep. And our last one is Westmore. You know, Westmore, I don't know enough about this guy. People keep telling me, like, you got to pay more attention to Westmore as the governor of Maryland.

23:21Really another one of these guys with like a biography that was, you know, written in the stars to be president one day. Army combat veteran, Rhodes Scholar, bestselling author, first black governor of Maryland. He had, you know, he was raised in poverty. I think his father died when he was really young. Went to military. Mom sent him to military school when he was struggling. So, again, he's got a really sort of like, you know, just an inspirational story that translates, would translate powerfully on the trail. You know, he would he would be he would excite black voters. I think he would probably excite younger Democrats.

23:55He can be sort of like idealistic. He hasn't. But again, he like Bashir, he hasn't broken out yet. He's really untested. Like, can you tell me any of his accomplishments as governor of Maryland? Bridge collapse. Well, is that an accomplishment? That bridge hasn't been built yet. But a media moment. Yeah, I guess. I mean, he hasn't been governor that long. He's one of these guys whose ceiling could be super high, but we just don't know his floor yet, if that makes sense. So it's kind of like Jerry's still out, but he's another one of these guys that you've got to get out there. You've got to start selling your story a little bit, you know?

24:34So that's it. Those are our 10 or 11? Yeah. Okay, so I'm adding a couple to the list. These are some dark horses that I got. I asked our our texters on subtext in our group chat who they would add to this list. And they said somebody somebody threw in Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. I think Klobuchar would have won in 2024. I think I think like California, Minnesota is a is a death sentence in a general election just because of all of the fraud that we've seen. all of the sort of like political upheaval. You know, Tim Walz didn't do anybody, any Democrats in that state any favors in his sort of performance in 2024.

25:17And since she's much smarter than Tim Walz, much more talented politician and much more, you know, she's got sort of like a Hillary Clinton thing. Like she's lethal, like she's smart. You know, she knows how to play the game. But I just think, I think that, you know, the millstone of the Medicare fraud in Minneapolis particularly or in Minnesota statewide is just going to be deadly for anyone from that state. So I'm soft on her. Chris Murphy was another one. Somebody wrote in. Connecticut's another one that could be a millstone, right? You know, it's like the, you know, does anybody want a sort of coastal, you know, another northeastern coastal elite after Donald Trump.

26:02I don't know. You know, he sort of delivers like a left-wing populism from the standpoint of kind of like a boring middle-aged white guy, which might be valuable, might translate well in a primary. But I don't know. Something about him that kind of rubs me the wrong way. He's like very combative on social media, which again, I get why they do this. But I just like to me, it just doesn't come. It's like you're a senator. Like why are you tweeting all day? Right? I get it. I understand why they do it. But like don't you do – don't you people work? And then the last one that somebody wrote in to throw into the hat, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's former chief of staff, former mayor of Chicago.