The Election 2028 Presidential Prospects as of Now

 

The 2026 elections are almost upon us. You all know what that means: before the end of the year, Presidential candidates will be throwing their hat in the ring for 2028. 

The tradition is all but ingrained at this stage. When the Republican Party collapsed across the board in 2006 due to President George W. Bush’s deep unpopularity plus massive scandals in the House and US Senate, Republican contenders began scrambling to get ahead of the mess: define themselves early while distancing themselves from the GOP mess at the time.

US Senator John McCain got sandbagged with the 2008 nomination, in part because he was the next in line, having lost to Bush in 2000. Former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Florida Governor Jeb Bush were considering a bid, but they wisely avoided an election that would only compound Republican losses.

Presuming Republicans will exceed political projections in 2026, perhaps even hold on to the House and the US Senate, they may face a rougher 2028. After all, Republicans expected to do very well in 2022; they barely won the House, but we want a resounding victory across the board in 2024. They should expect a similar turnaround against them

Republican calculations also depend on what the Democrats plan for their standard-bearer. Will the DNC establishment and the liberal ground-game organizers resolve (i.e., neutralize) their socialism problem? Will they mitigate their anti-Zionist crazies? Or will they have to find a way to create a two-state solution within their party so that pro-Palestinian elements will coexist peacefully with the still-extant pro-Israel Democratic caucus? I doubt they will find peace, since the pro-terrorist elements are gaining, and they show no sign of slacking or moderating their abusive disdain for Israel, Jews, and the Western tradition.

Granted, the Arab-Israel foreign policy divide has emerged within some Republican circles, but it's not a severe divide among the electorate. The nominees will have to make their case, and the more isolationist faction can cause trouble.

The 2028 Republican line-up will face the biggest challenge: Who succeeds Trump? The New York real estate mogul turned Top Five President in US History is a once-in-a-lifetime figure, impossible to imitate. His platform of lower immigration, cultural restoration, and populist confirmation has reshaped the Republican brand. The next GOP presidential candidate must embrace this new MAGA message while connecting with disaffected suburbs and dissident Republicans repelled by Trump’s brashness and bombast.

Vice President JD Vance is the frontrunner. Critics will charge that he has a thin resume, but the vice-presidential office is about as useful as a warm picture of spit, and John Adams found it to be one of the most useless offices devised by man. Not Vance’s fault that he hasn’t done much.

His main strength is communication, which matters most for a national office. He helped message MAGA to the country in 2024, and he articulates working-class angst against a government and corporate complex determined to put power and profit ahead of the people. However, he is advocating more government spending and overreach, including a federal program for stay-at-home parents. Most handouts? He has frequently praised the economic interventionism of US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Socialism-lite is still socialism, JD. His ongoing friendship with Woke Right anti-Zionist carnival barker Tucker Carlson will trouble his presidential bid.

Republicans should not settle for a JD Coronation, an outcome so unbecoming of a Republican Party that has become more grassroots-oriented. Vance either needs to shift his stance on free enterprise issues and make a clear, clean break from the podcastistan Woke Right, or he's going to face some major headwinds in the 2028 primary, a divide that will hobble the conservative cause going into the general election.

For all the JD Vance liabilities above, Republicans should be looking for someone else to take up Trump’s mantle.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has generated a growing following. established himself as an effective executive, a true on-the-ground administrator who gets things done, advancing a true America First agenda without anti-Zionist rantings. His stance on economic issues might be more tolerable to the free-market elements within the GOP, and his record on stopping illegal immigration is impeccable.

My first pick remains retiring Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He not only messages the MAGA, but he makes it manifest and marketable across the country. He has a keen vision and attention to ideas, programs, policies, and personnel. The only problem is that a lot of MAGA will never forgive him for challenging King Trump, and governors have a hard time breaking out of their statewide followings. Florida is the new standard for conservative political prowess, but it doesn't guarantee DeSantis a chance. Then again, before Trump, two of the last three Republican presidents, who served two terms as president, had been governors. Perhaps DeSantis needs to invest in a PR program and follow the pathways laid out by Reagan and George W. Bush to make himself known in the national discussion. No doubt he will run for President in 2028. Then again, his best bet may be angling for a VP slot with Vance or Rubio.

There is one other presidential wild card: US Senator Ted Cruz. He run his course; he had his chance in 2016, and I think that the MAGA movement swept him aside. Cruz is an excellent essential fighter in the US Senate. If he doesn't want to be a Supreme Court justice, he should settle for a leadership position in the upper chamber or consider statewide office in Texas, perhaps even running for governor once Greg Abbott retires. With ten years gone, Cruz has no viable means to exceed his results after his considerable yet unsuccessful 2016 bid for president. And this is coming from a guy who supported him in that contentious primary! 

Now let’s look at the potential Democratic presidential contenders. They face some soul-searching (if there’s a soul to search for).  Democratic pundits suggest the following are in the running for chief executive: AOC, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has made no pretensions of hiding his ambitions, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. 

They face a raucous, divided liberal caucus. The Bernie Bros and their progressive peers are out for blood. They've been screwed for the last 10 years, and they demand not just a seat at a table, but the chairman’s corner. If they can't get their progressive pick, they will insist on claiming final dibs on who carries the Democratic Party banner. Clinton-era campaign manager James Carville can complain all he wants, but the DSA is here to stay, having infiltrated the inner workings of his party. The current DNC roster is pulled in so many directions and is desperate to placate the anti-Zionist elements in the National Conference, which proves that the DSA militants are determined to have their say. 

This divide presents a golden opportunity for a 2028 GOP win.

Republicans must resolve foreign policy differences and reassert commitments to free enterprise and cultural restoration. If they channel Trump without the bluster and focus on the DSA cluster of craziness, they can carry the MAGA agenda for years to come.

Republicans Pay Attention, Go Constitutional-Nationalist with Trump

The Weekly Standard thought that they had published a perfect hit piece going after Marco Rubio for taking on more of President Trump's talking points and policy goals.

On the contrary, Rubio is getting in line with the political and moral proposals that will Make America Great Again and Keep America Great!

Rubio Goes Nationalist

Meet the new Marco . . .

In June 2016, Marco Rubio changed his mind and announced that he would not be retiring from the Senate as he had planned. A major reason he was seeking a second term, Rubio said, was to help the Senate exercise what “could end up being its most important [role] in the years to come: the constitutional power to act as a check and balance on the excesses of a president”—whether that would be President Clinton or President Trump.

Yes indeed. If Rubio had not run for re-election, a Democrat would have very likely scooped up the US Senate seat, and we would be in an even worse position today than we are now. Can anyone imagine the United States Senate reduced to another 50-50 split just like in 2001?

Let's not forget that there are two waffly RINOs who have derailed crucial nominations and confirmations in the past.

After rattling off his concerns about Hillary Clinton, Rubio said: “The prospect of a Trump presidency is also worrisome to me. It is no secret that I have significant disagreements with Donald Trump. His positions on many key issues are still unknown. And some of his statements, especially about women and minorities, I find not just offensive but unacceptable. If he is elected, we will need senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if necessary, stand up to him. I’ve proven a willingness to do both.”

Rubio, like many politicos, needed to distance himself from President Trump for whatever reason. Not sure what to make of that, but at least Rubio won the seat and has voted to confirm President Trump's excellent nominees to the Supreme Court and other agencies.

Rubio then defeated a populist, Trumpian primary challenger that August by 54 percentage points. He went on to win by 8 points in the general election that November, while Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Florida by 1 point. Other conservative GOP senators outperformed Trump in the key battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And Trump’s approval rating today is mired in the 40s despite a roaring economy. Yet the lesson of 2016 for many Republicans is that they need to be more like Trump.

What's happening much of the time is that legislative candidates, whether state or federal, will do better when they focus on serving, doing the best for their states and their constituents. That's what matters the most.

And yes, Republicans need to be more like Trump, in that they must embrace his pro-American, pro-worker, anti-globalist policies. They need to listen to the voters, not the donors. What is the problem with any of this?

One of those Republicans appears to be Marco Rubio. The Florida senator fully backs Trump’s trade war with China. “The most catastrophic thing that could happen is not a trade war, but that we lose one, or that we back down from one,” Rubio tells me in an interview.

Exactly. The tariff schemes forced on the United States need to go away, or the United States should fight back to protect our industries and workers. These are new concepts to me, in the sense that I had always believed that tariffs are bad, but doing nothing has not worked for us.

Earlier this summer, Rubio delivered a speech in Washington calling for a “new nationalism” in which he decried an “economic elitism that has replaced a commitment to the dignity of work with a blind faith in financial markets and that views America simply as an economy instead of a nation.”

That statement is one of the best I have heard, and coming out of the mouth of a former Presidential competitor, that is even better news. Indeed, a country is more than an economy. This should not be a noteworthy revelation. Even Milton Friedman declared that economic freedom is a necessary but not sufficient condition for freedom.

A free, constitutional republic is more than a corporate interest.

“I saw the devastating impact of this kind of thinking firsthand during my campaign for president,” Rubio told the Faith and Freedom Conference. “I saw it in the factory towns hollowed out by the companies who shipped those jobs overseas to turn a bigger profit—and where the dignity of work has been replaced by food stamps and disability checks and opioids.” You just might say that Rubio painted a picture of “American carnage,” to borrow a phrase from the Trump inaugural address.

Yes, and I am on the Trump train with Marco Rubio. Good for him. Of course, the Weekly Standard will go to every length possible to denounce anyone gets off the Bill Kristol-backed globalist plantation.

Whereas big tech companies were once featured in his speeches as examples of American innovation, Rubio now warns of a lack of corporate morality and patriotism: “When right and wrong is based entirely and solely on profitability, then there is nothing immoral about shipping jobs overseas or surrendering key American technology and innovation to China.” He singled out Google for refusing to work with the Department of Defense but contemplating a return to China.

Rubio had every right to slam Google for blowing off President Trump's request. Shame on them. I can't wait for the future to pass Google by!

Asked how Trump has changed the Republican party, for good or ill, Rubio has only positive things to say. “One of the things the president was able to do through his election is reconnect the Republican party to working Americans. It was probably a needed correction. It was the party that was heavily focused on the employer’s side, which is still very important, but not enough on the employee’s side,” Rubio tells me. “The early inklings of that were the Huckabee campaign and Santorum in 2012. All of them sort of nibbled at the edges of it. The president was able to truly embrace it, and I think that’s a very positive thing.”

YES INDEED!

Rubio now speaks with President Trump “I would say twice, three times a month.” He worked closely with Ivanka Trump on developing a paid-family-leave bill that would give Americans the option of taking some of their Social Security for family leave in exchange for delaying retirement by three to six months. “Ivanka views her role as sort of the host of a competition of ideas,” Rubio says. “She’s trying to encourage people to come forward, so we’re going to be the first entrant into this competition on the Republican side.” After Rubio unveiled his bill, Utah senator Mike Lee announced he intends to introduce his own paid-family-leave bill soon with Iowa senator Joni Ernst. Welcome to “Celebrity Apprentice: Paid Family Leave Edition.”

What's not too like? More elected officials in Washington DC want to work with the President and go along with his ideas that put American interests and American citizens first.

While Rubio called for a “new nationalism” in June, the speech focused heavily on the need to strengthen families and civil society. It was the kind of nationalism admired more by David Brooks than Steve Bannon. (“This is one of the best and most unifying Republican speeches in years,” the New York Times columnist tweeted.) Rubio steeped his new nationalism in the language of the Declaration of Independence. “Nothing is more American than the belief that all men are created equal. Nothing is more American than the belief that every human being is endowed by God with the inalienable right to life and liberty and to pursue happiness,” Rubio said. “This is the kind of new nationalism we need. And this is the kind of new nationalism we should insist new immigrants embrace.” After the speech, Rubio told me he doesn’t see a distinction between the kind of nationalism he was calling for and patriotism. He acknowledged the nationalist label is “often used to describe people who believe that they should only do things that are good for their country and at the expense of other countries” but said he rejects that view.

I LOVE THIS!

But let's not forget that the Weekly Standard is very, very angry with "Little Marco" going along with Trump.

Let's also not forget that fewer people are reading the Weekly Standard, and more likely than not the editors, including Bill Kristol but also Fred Barnes, are simply not interested in recognizing that their perverse push for their ivory tower conservatism simply isn't a winner with anyone!