Breaking down the 2028 presidential race
As noted in the last post, one of the differences between a congressional primary and the presidential is that with the congressional a party can identify niche candidates for specific constituencies. Obviously you can’t do that when you’re nominating one person for the whole country.
Of course parties also nominate vice presidential candidates often, with the aim of appealing to a broader audience. But one is hard-pressed to identify a VP candidate in modern history who made a difference in the general election campaign, although it’s surely true that Kennedy wouldn’t have won Texas in 1960 without LBJ on the ticket — although even in that case the Texas’s 24 electoral votes in and of themselves weren’t decisive.
The same old story — purple states are key
Presidential campaigns are ultimately about securing 270 electoral votes. While the Pew Study discussed in this space last week shows that a surprising number of voters are potentially up for grabs, the fact remains that most states (43 of them) aren’t. The battleground in 2028 is likely again to be the seven so-called purple states (AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, and WI). If by some chance a Republican were to break into 19-state blue territory or the Democrat were to manage to win in one of the 24 red bastions he or she would probably be headed for the sort of landslide victory we haven’t seen since the 1980s.
The most straightforward analysis concludes that, just as in most competitive Senate and House races, more moderate positions on cultural questions in particular, but also on economics, are the key to competing in the purple states.
The amorphous thing called a “political party”
What complicates the picture is that “the party” is an amorphous entity that doesn’t have a secret conclave controlling presidential nominations. The primary is fluid, with voters having the final say. And make no mistake about it: the ideological base — the “true believers” — in both parties are the cohort most likely to turn out, contribute money, and provide the shoe leather needed for a successful campaign. It’s an open question how many of them approach their choice from a pragmatic “what sells in the purple states?” perspective.
And here’s another twist: as un-amazing as it may sound sometimes both parties nominate people who aren’t the most pragmatic choice. Think of 2016 — Hillary Clinton may have been the only Democrat Trump could have beaten, and it’s also true that Trump was probably the only Republican Clinton had a decent chance against. Similarly, in ‘24, Kamala Harris likely couldn’t have beaten any Republican, although maybe only the fact Republicans nominated Trump, with all his shortcomings and erratic campaign behavior, gave her a fighting chance.
Ultimately presidential elections come down to the “compared to what?” question. As such, let’s consider the candidates, what they bring to the table, and what factors might ultimately drive the outcome.
The party factions
The analysis starts with a look at the two parties’ coalitions — each has three major factions or “lanes” — and where prospective candidates might find their core support.
For Democrats:
The moderately liberal or “electable” lane: The pragmatic purple state-focused Democrats favor prospective candidates such as Josh Shapiro, Jon Ossoff, Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear, and Ruben Gallego.
Highly educated, economically secure strong liberals1: These Democrats are probably best represented most prominently by Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Pete Buttigieg, but also by Wes Moore, JB Pritzker, and Ossoff.
The leftist progressive lane: This faction is embodied by prospective candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna.
For Republicans, the breakdown goes like this:
The moderately conservative or “electable” lane: Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Brian Kemp, and Tim Scott could be said to best represent the kind of candidate favored by what used to be the GOP establishment.
The MAGA lane: The candidates most likely to vie aggressively to assume the Trump-MAGA mantle are JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, and Rubio.
The Christian conservative lane: These Republicans are best represented by Ted Cruz, JD Vance, and Scott.
The most pragmatic party members will focus their attention not just on those in that electable lane but will go one step further by looking for someone with maximum crossover appeal to other factions.
The best argument on the GOP side for a candidate with that desirable kind of breadth can be made for Rubio or Scott, for Democrats it’s arguably Ossoff — assuming he wins reelection this year, of course.
What if both parties go the pragmatic route? Or both scratch an ideological itch?
If both parties pick an electable candidate, at least two other factors weigh in. The big one is unknowable at this point: what are the political conditions in 2028 — how’s the economy doing and how is the incumbent administration perceived? The other is the amorphous “It Factor.” Another way of saying the same thing: who’s got the “political rizz”?
Democrats are probably better stocked with rizzy candidates — good arguments could be made for Ossoff, Gallego, Newsom, Moore, and Ocasio-Cortez. For Republicans the best examples are probably Rubio and Haley.
These two factors — political conditions and the rizz factor — also weigh heavily if the parties do what they do more often than their respective establishment would like: nominate someone who may be less appealing in the purple states but who scratches an ideological itch.
If the race were to come down to Vance and Newsom (which doesn’t seem unlikely at this point), Newsom would certainly win the rizz sweepstakes. But political conditions might prove even more important. A Cruz-AOC contest? Wow! Again, the Democrat has the rizz but political conditions could be decisive.
It’ll probably be about political conditions and … the electoral college
Political conditions are important enough that they could potentially militate in favor of an ideological candidate even against a more electable one if things are dire (advantage: blue team) or the economy is really cooking (advantage: red).
Finally, there’s one more critical factor, one that is painful for Democrats to think about: The electoral college favors the GOP. Biden won the popular vote decisively in 2020, but the electoral college was a very close call; Trump won in 2016 without a popular plurality; and he probably would have beaten Harris even if she’d managed to eke out a popular vote edge. The bottom line is that Democrats need a cushion in the popular vote, much like Biden had, to win the electoral college.
Nate Silver, in this piece, develops three lanes in the party that vary slightly from mine. In so many words he considers this lane (my second) the Heather Cox Richardson Democrats, referring to the Substack blogger with a tremendous following skewed older, wealthier, and more liberal, and comprised of more women than men.