Dem
54
Ties
2
GOP
44
The elections last week are going to cast a long shadow on the 2028 elections. The House could go every which way and we covered the Senate above. And now, what about the race for president? To start with, could reliably red states, like Kansas, Texas, Mississippi, and South Carolina go red? It seems implausible now, but 2 years ago you could have gotten really good odds on a bet that Democrats would be elected to both the Senate and governorship in Texas in 2026. You might have been able to get 100 to 1. If Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa (D) does a really good job of governing, Texans might decide that Democrats aren't going to send them off to a gulag somewhere and with the right candidate, Texas could go blue again. It's something Republicans have to consider.
Bill Stepien, Donald Trump's 2020 campaign manager, said: "Last night undoubtedly made the mechanics of winning in 2028 harder for Republicans." By this he meant they are going to have to spend a lot of money in Texas, or at least shake down Elon Musk to ante up even bigger than this time. With Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) winning reelection by 18 points and Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) winning by almost 9 points, Georgia is becoming a huge problem for Republicans. And now that Black voters in Mississippi have discovered that if they all vote, they can possibly win, Mississippi could become another swing state, strange as it sounds.
Marc Short, Mike Pence's then-chief of staff, compared 2026 to 2006, when the Democrats crushed the Republicans and went on to win the presidency and the trifecta in 2008. Of course, they had a once-in-a-generation candidate in 2008 and there is no guarantee the Democrats can repeat that trick in 2028.
For the presidential race, Ossoff got a big boost, even though he said he is not interested in running. Winning a swing state—in the South, no less—by 18 points is not something a lot of other candidates will be able to bring to the table. Nevertheless, there could be 20-30 candidates for the Democratic nomination. For the debates, they will need an adults' table, a teenagers' table, and a kiddies' table.
But the real impact is on the Republican side. J.D. Vance represents "more of the same," and the voters were pretty clear Tuesday that they do not want more of the same. He can try to distance himself from Donald Trump, for example, by moving to the right and claiming true MAGA has never been tried. Can Vance/Carlson '28 win? We doubt it. We also note it is so hard for a sitting vice president to be elected president that it has happened only four times in history: John Adams (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1800), Martin van Buren (1836) and George H.W. Bush (1988). Other than Bush's win, which was seen as the third term for the popular Ronald Reagan, it has been almost 200 years since a veep pulled it off. And Vance is a terrible politician. He won one election on his own, the Ohio Senate race against Tim Ryan, by 6 points with $15 million of Peter Thiel's money on the books and an unknown amount in dark money. Former WH Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said: "I think if you're Vance you gotta take the nomination and pray you get someone on the other side like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez." But that strategy won't work if the person on the other side is Ossoff, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), or one of the Arizona senators, both of whom are impressive.
Marco Rubio said he would not run if Vance does, but he can always change his mind—and probably will if he thinks he has a chance. But he is closely tied to the extremely unpopular Iran War. At some point, Trump is going to have to make the surrender official, and as Secretary of State, Rubio may be forced to sign the surrender document. That will be a tough sell in 2028. On Friday, he is going to make a speech at the Federalist Society. He might just use this opportunity to resign from the administration to avoid having his fingerprints all over the surrender. It is unlikely to do the job, though. If he wanted to oppose the war, he should have done it before the midterms.
If Vance and Rubio are too closely tied to a very unpopular president whose approval is probably going to get worse
in the next 2 years, who then? Nature Politics abhors a vacuum. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) can't wait to jump in
DeSantis is starting to attack the administration for its corruption and its love of AI and data centers. He even called
the midterms an "extinction-level event for the Republicans." Since he is far from D.C., he can attack everyone there
with clean hands. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is practically already in, but as one of the most despised people in politics and
hated by his 99 Senate colleagues. He doesn't have a steep hill to climb, he has to climb Mt. Everest—blindfolded
and barefoot.
In addition, other outsiders who bear none of the responsibility for the Iran War or inflation are certainly heartened by the disaster last week and could see their stars rising. These could include Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), and former governors Glenn Youngkin (VA) and Chris Sununu (NH). And probably many more. (V)