Sep.01

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

A Look at the 2028 Republican Field

We have been going over the possible 2028 Democratic presidential nominees for a couple of months now. What about the red team? The Hill has made a first stab at it. Here is their list [and our notes]:

• J.D. Vance: He is next in line and shares Donald Trump's isolationist tendencies. He is also a very smart politician and loves to bash the media, as does Trump. [However, he is a Yale Law School graduate and former venture capitalist, not Joe Sixpack. He is also a phony and the base is pretty good at sniffing that out. There are also childless Republican cat ladies and they may not forgive him for that. Still, he is probably the front runner at this point.]
  
  
• Donald Trump Jr.: The base loves people named Donald Trump, so why not give them a candidate named Donald Trump? Liberals absolutely despise him, which is a big selling point among Republican voters. He is also very aggressive, which is a plus with Republican voters. [We find this inconceivable. He is a terrible politician with none of dad's charisma. None. He is also not very smart. He could never survive a primary against much better and smarter politicians.]
  
  
• Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): He is young (48), smart (Harvard and Harvard Law School), telegenic, and an excellent politician. He is also an Iraq veteran and conservative on cultural and economic issues. He is also from the South, which is a plus with the base. [He would be a formidable candidate if he runs.]
  
  
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Back in 2016, Cruz was by far Trump's most serious rival. He is definitely a conservative on economic and cultural issues. [He is also widely despised, even in Texas, and is seen as extremely arrogant. The other 99 senators hate him. Besides, he once called Trump a pathological liar and that quote would be played over and over in the primaries.]
  
  
• Marco Rubio: He ran against Trump in 2016, but now he kowtows to Trump and that could erase some of the bad memories. He might be capable of bridging the gap between "America First" and the foreign policy hawks. [He has a reputation for being lazy and a lightweight, but he looks good on TV and can talk up a storm. He might be a serious candidate if he works on his shortcomings.]
  
  
• Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): He built Alligator Alcatraz, which gives him some street cred with the base. He tried in 2024 and didn't get far. [He has a tin ear and is very inauthentic. He was elected governor of Florida by getting rich donors to pony up and having an excellent team make quality ads for him. That absolutely does not work in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters would, and did, sniff out his phoniness very fast.]
  
  
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): He would be a surprise candidate who supports working-class voters more than any other Republican. That could be worth something. He is young (45) and looks good on TV. [He is not well known and would have to establish himself quickly, but he might be able to pull it off. If the Republican voters want a fresh face who is young, looks good on TV, and is plenty conservative, Hawley and Cotton both fit the bill. That said, if both get in, they would be competing for the same voters.]
  
  
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): [The Hill's write up on her is entirely negative. Why is she on the list? She took a pass at both running for governor of Georgia and the Senate because she knew she couldn't win statewide. How could she win nationally? A complete joke.]
  
  
• Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC): He is a friendly, authentic politician who is liked by all the other senators in all the factions. Because he is Black, he could make further inroads in getting Black voters to become red voters. [He ran in 2020 and didn't get anywhere. As mentioned above, he is Black and the GOP is the party where the racist voters are. Nice guys finish last.]

What surprises us is that two people not on the list strike us as almost certain candidates: Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA). Both are conservative in terms of policy but are not fire-breathing dragons. If Trumpism is in the dumpster by 2028, Republican voters may want a conservative outsider and governors are the obvious candidates.

Perhaps a bigger issue lurking in the background is: "Whither the Republican Party?" Trump has stayed true to two traditional Republican principles: tax cuts for rich people and less regulation of business, but has strayed far from them on many others. He believes in a big, powerful, interventionist government, not one small enough to drown in a bathtub. He hates free markets and free trade. He has repeatedly said that "tariff" is the most beautiful word in the English language. Traditional Republicans abhor tariffs.

Republicans have always hated industrial policy, picking winners and losers. Trump loves to pick winners. After Apple made nice to him, he made Apple exempt from horrible tariffs. He even "bought" 10% of Intel. This would have been unthinkable for Ronald Reagan or the Bushes. So did anyone cheer him on? Yes, avowed Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Trump fired a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. Interfering with the Fed would have been anathema to any previous Republican president. He hates immigrants and immigration. Previously, Republicans welcomed immigrants (because they do jobs no one else wants and tend to push wages down). No Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower actually tried to deport large numbers of immigrants. Is that what Republicans now believe in? For the most part, previous Republicans believed in science and certainly in vaccines. Trump, not so much. The list goes on.

The big question here is whether the 2028 Republican primaries will be about what it means to be a Republican. Right now it means that you are for what Trump is for at that moment. But if Trump is not on the ballot, what does it mean? Vance and Youngkin probably don't see eye-to-eye on that and a fight for the soul of the Republican Party could be a big fight indeed in 2028. (V)