The 2028 presidential election is still over three years away, but the tracks are already being laid for the Democratic primary.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) appears to have unofficially kicked off this race. In April, Booker broke the record for longest speech on the Senate floor after a rambling diatribe where he didn’t say anything of value. Booker saw a brief polling bump because of this, scoring a 12% result in a Zeteo/Data for Progress poll shortly after. But it’s only been downhill from there, with Booker dropping to 7% as of last month in an Echelon Insights poll, trailing former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Booker, whose 2020 campaign polled so poorly that he dropped out before primary voters even cast their votes, is trying to recapture that magic. That started with Booker telling Democrats to download TikTok on their personal devices so the party could (supposedly) reach young voters. Booker is urging this to get around the ban on downloading the Chinese spyware app for government devices, and because he is convinced that social media can boost his campaign to victory.
In his latest stunt on the Senate floor, Booker channeled his inner theater kid to scream and shout about Democrats being “complicit” in President Donald Trump’s agenda. His inauthentic performance was compounded by the inauthenticity of his message: The bills he was blocking were bipartisan law enforcement bills that Democrats otherwise unanimously supported. The stunt earned him a reprimand from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who insinuated that Booker was too lazy to show up to present amendments for the bills before his embarrassing performance.
Booker is trying to take up the “fighter” lane, but there is a real contender for the nomination also planning on occupying it. Enter Gavin Newsom, who has been measuring the drapes for the Oval Office going back to at least 2022. Newsom has tried to portray himself as more moderate, launching a podcast where he can talk to conservative guests and pretend that he isn’t a radical progressive on guns or transgenderism. Despite his faux moderation on cultural issues, he has actually quietly moderated (or tried to moderate) California policy on issues such as energy, in order to avoid embarrassing headlines about how his state can’t keep the lights on or about soaring gas prices.
But, going back to 2019, Newsom has positioned himself as a fighter against Trump’s policies. Newsom started 2025 by announcing that California (which has been dealing with a budget crisis under Newsom’s stewardship for years) would be setting aside $50 million to sue the Trump administration. Most recently, Newsom wants to overturn California’s congressional map, which has been gerrymandered by an “independent” commission, to craft a more severely gerrymandered map and give Democrats a boost in the 2026 elections, which Newsom is framing as a fight against Trump “rigging” the 2026 elections.
Newsom’s argument is simple and predictable: He is the governor of the largest Democratic state in the country and has used California’s government and economy to push back on Trump at every turn. Newsom is polling at 10% in that mid-July Echelon Insights poll, just behind Pete Buttigieg at 11%.
Buttigieg’s inevitable campaign is going to be focused on the areas where Democrats fell short last year. Buttigieg is already doing the rounds in alternative media and reaching out to the young men who have abandoned the party. Buttigieg wants to double-dip with Democrats by claiming credit for all the things Democrats like about the Biden administration while distancing himself from the distasteful parts that he had less control over (such as school closures).
Believe it or not, Harris is still the top dog in the field until proven otherwise. In that same poll that has Buttigieg and Newsom barely cracking double digits, Harris leads the field at 26%. She declined to enter the field in the California governor’s race, a decision made with eyes toward 2028, even though she claims she is not planning on running for president (something that just about every presidential candidate claims even if they are clearly planning on running).
Harris will flaunt her identitarian credentials (the first black woman to be vice president) and all the supposed good Democrats think the Biden administration achieved, while daring anyone to challenge her on it. She will claim that no one could have done any better with a truncated campaign (which is what her supporters have been saying since she lost last year).
Democrats also changed the primary calendar order before the 2024 elections to benefit her and Biden by placing South Carolina first in the order. The DNC’s goal was to give black voters the first say in the primary process, and Harris gets the most support from those voters among the hypothetical candidates. (Side note: Buttigieg pulls an impressive 0% in polls among black voters).
There are other minor candidates that will litter the field. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is a lesser version of Newsom. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is the popular governor of a swing state who presents as a moderate despite being a progressive, but his being Jewish is a liability in an increasingly antisemitic party. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wants some kind of role in the future of the party, but it won’t ever be at the top of the ticket.
There is one remaining potential candidate, though, to fill the Bernie Sanders wing of the primary. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is 35 years old and the heir apparent to the socialist base of the 83-year-old Sanders. Ocasio-Cortez opened for Sanders on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, polishing her performance in front of crowds. Sanders almost certainly will not run due to his age. While Ocasio-Cortez is polling in the mid-single digits early, Sanders won 26% of the vote in the 2020 primary, meaning those voters would be inclined to back whoever Sanders endorses.
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And Ocasio-Cortez would be running as the socialist in the field at a time when socialism is building momentum in the party. Zohran Mamdani is going to be the next mayor of New York City, and Democrats want to take a page from the enthusiasm for his campaign to use in elections across the country. Ocasio-Cortez will be the candidate who can offer that on the Democratic stage, especially with the backing of Sanders and Mamdani.
While there is still a whole election cycle between now and when Democrats will likely start declaring their presidential intentions, the positioning has already begun. Everything Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, Ocasio-Cortez, and the rest of the likely field say and do over the coming two years can be boiled down to 2028 positioning, with most of them having already carved out their lanes and their main pitches to voters.