Big tent or three-ring circus? Here why AOC, Pete, Gavin and the others should think twice about 2028
It’s once again primary night in America. Minnesota, Connecticut, Vermont and Wisconsin will all hold primaries in their states. In addition, Alabama will hold primaries for its newly redrawn congressional map while South Carolina will hold a primary to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham on the Republican ballot.
All of these will set the stage for contests this November. But as any political junkie knows, once the midterms end, the presidential jockeying begins. Republicans seem firmly set on running either Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio to succeed Donald Trump.
That leaves the real contest — on the Democratic side. Earlier this year, Democrats moved their primary calendar for the Big-Six states before Super Tuesday. South Carolina will now go first, followed by Nevada, then New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and finally Virginia.
This will fundamentally alter the political calculus of any would-be candidate for the White House. As soon as the final ballots for the midterms are counted, it will be time to weigh the pros and cons of a presidential contest. Here is a list of potential candidates and why they should and should not run.
There’s no other way around it. By virtue of her being the most recent Democratic presidential nominee and someone who had to assemble a campaign within 107 days, she is the frontrunner. Just in the same way Joe Biden ran for president after Trump’s second term when voters were nostalgic for Barack Obama, Harris could easily swoop in offering a familiar product as some voters seek a return to the relative calm of the brief Biden era.
Why she should run: The new primary calendar puts South Carolina at the top. That means Black voters, particularly older female voters in that group, will likely turn out in droves for Harris. More likely than not, she will earn the endorsement of former House Majority Whip James Clyburn, the kingmaker whose nod made Hillary Clinton and Biden the respective nominees of 2016 and 2020. As Trump’s most recent opponent, she can easily call back to her warnings about the president.
Why she should think twice: Harris has never won a competitive presidential primary. She dropped out in 2019 and didn’t even make it to Iowa. Biden and Clyburn all but gifted her the Democratic nomination after Biden dropped out in 2024. And the fact remains, she still lost to Trump. All of this would make it extraordinarily hard to convince people that she should be the nominee again in a time when many voters want something new.
When Buttigieg ran for president in 2019, he started out as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana with a funny-sounding last name. Six years later, he now has some experience under his belt as Secretary of Transportation during the Biden administration and a trusted surrogate for Democrats. Now married with a husband and children, with some facial hair to boot, he is already heading to New Hampshire and campaigning for Democrats in his new home state of Michigan.
Why he should run: Buttigieg is an effective communicator, being one of the few Democrats willing to go on Fox News to refute talking points. Still young at 44, he could make an argument that he can be a changing of the guard in a party dominated by senior citizens.
Why he should think twice: The fact South Carolina is now the first state in the primary contests puts Buttigieg at a significant disadvantage. While he won Iowa in 2020 in a coin toss with Sen. Bernie Sanders, he placed fourth behind Tom Steyer in South Carolina. While Clyburn suggested he could be a running mate to Harris in 2024 and she said in her memoir that she wanted to make him her running mate, he still needs to earn the trust of African American voters. And his nickname, “Mayor Pete,” also gives away he’s never held statewide office before.
And the fact remains that Buttigieg, and any other openly gay candidate, would still face stigma at the ballot box. In June, he revealed that he was separated from his children after someone filed a malicious false police report against him.
Perhaps no potential candidate has garnered as much buzz during the midterm cycle as the four-term democratic socialist from the Bronx and Queens. Eight years ago, she shocked the nation as an insurgent candidate who beat the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in a primary. Now in her fourth term in the House, she’s a sought-after surrogate for Democrats of all stripes. She no longer rules out running for president, and also made some people wonder what her next steps would be when she announced she would be freezing her eggs.
Why she should run: Six years ago, Ocasio-Cortez served as Sanders’ surrogate in the primary, only to see the Vermont socialist get crushed in the South. This year, progressives have made significant gains. Her socialist ally Zohran Mamdani became the mayor of New York City and socialists won insurgent primaries across the country. She also bet big when she endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate primary and he won. Michigan will now be fifth on the calendar and she can also likely coalesce support among Hispanic voters in Nevada, which will go second, alongside New Mexico.
Why she should think twice: There might be a more attractive and attainable prize on the horizon in the near future: Sen. Chuck Schumer’s seat. Whether in a primary challenge or in an open race, Ocasio-Cortez will easily coalesce support in New York and elsewhere. In New York City, the Democratic Socialists of America’s army of door-knockers will easily boost her campaign. And while she led a poll in New Hampshire, barely beating Buttigieg, that might be irrelevant considering the Granite State goes third now.
