The 2028 presidential election is a long way away. Right now, most of us are stressing about the midterms, especially in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling dismantling part of the Voting Rights Act.
But when we’re looking for hope under Donald Trump, it’s good to look at the long term. Despite it being so far away, short of any shocking revelations I’ve failed to predict, I feel like I’m already ready to call the 2028 presidential election for Pete Buttigieg.
Now that isn’t necessarily an endorsement of him over every other candidate. But I do think that Buttigieg is the most likely person to win the 2028 election in a time when politics has become so much about us and them, fighting tooth and nail, and throwing any care for the truth out of the window.
Of course, Buttigieg hasn’t announced that he’s running for president yet. But he’s made it pretty clear that he plans to, including getting caught out when trying to avoid the question from Stephen Colbert.
Buttigieg manages to represent a good middle of the road, but also somehow seems to encompass the whole road. When he ran in 2019, he was more conservative on economic policy and his approach to the military than some of us might have liked.
In the last seven years, Buttigieg has had plenty of time and experience to evolve and has slightly more radical approaches to some of those issues. In that time, he’s worked in the White House alongside former President Joe Biden, and Trump has shown us all a truly horrific vision for America.
Speaking about his experience over the last few years on Colbert recently, he said: “I feel that I’m a moderate ideologically, but it’s kind of radicalized me about the condition of our institutions.” That “moderate ideology” might mean he’s not an ideal candidate for the far left, but with some of his more active ideas and his move to call out the Democratic party for inaction, it’s believable they’d hold their nose and vote for him.
But the crucial element of Buttigieg’s potential to win the presidency comes from how he has reached into the homes of hardcore Republican voters and held his own through his countless Fox News interviews. At a time when political division rules and having reasonable discourse seems impossible, he’s managed to do just that. Buttigieg hasn’t held back about Trump, but in a way that means he has the chance to really pull over some swing voters and even lifelong Republicans who are tired of Trump and his MAGA cult.
But it’s not just that Buttigieg is a strong candidate in his own right. It’s that the rest of the field just doesn’t hold many strong contenders to take him on.
On the Republican side of the aisle, the idea of any of them winning the presidency in 2028 after Trump has tanked the economy and gone to war with Iran just doesn’t hold up to reasonable scrutiny. Anti-trans fearmongering isn’t going to win him enough votes (the erosion of the Voting Rights Act and his attempts to suppress large swathes of the electorate aside).
If Trump tries to run for a third term, constitutionalist Republicans aren’t going to put up with that. Trump has driven his own approval ratings down the toilet, and his machinations over the last decade have left the Republican Party light on people ready to stand up with conviction.
Nobody likes JD Vance. Coming off the cult of Trump, it seems unlikely that someone as milquetoast as Mike Pence could mount any sort of reasonable campaign (it didn’t work well in 2024).
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is retiring. Former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) will be in his 80s. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Marco Rubio might make swings for it, but they don’t have a good track record when it comes to presidential elections and aren’t helped by the way that Trump has gone after each of them in the past.
After that, you start looking at Trump’s Cabinet of former Fox News hosts, and if they even make it to the end of his term, it’s hard to imagine them making a serious bid for the presidency.
On top of that, anyone who tries to run for the presidency on a Republican ticket after Trump will have to deal with the curse of the MAGA cult. They’ll either have to court Trump’s old base while the rest of the Republican Party is fed up with them and Trump’s old tactics. Or they have to disavow that base and have the MAGA crowd – and its pundits – mad at them in return. Balancing the two sides of that coin doesn’t seem feasible.
The Democrats have a similar problem, though. There are more options for a primary, but I suspect Buttigieg still has a lead. A lot of the old contenders are closer to retirement than running for president. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is looking to effect change behind the scenes rather than run. Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) “hasn’t dismissed” a 2028 bid, and his record-breaking filibuster might make him a good contender, but he hasn’t put in the same work that Buttigieg seems to have been laying down for the last few years.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made a name for himself lately, especially with a social media team that has emulated Trump’s posting style to mock him. But that has likely alienated a lot of swing voters who don’t want to see more of the same, and he’s overly centrist and less likely to pull in the far-left vote.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has quietly shown her strengths, but hasn’t stepped out in the national public eye much to make headway ahead of a bid. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz seems hesitant about stepping back into that fray. And the idea of former Vice President Kamala Harris running again after 2024 seems unlikely.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been a lot of people’s dream candidate since long before she was old enough to run. While she has a good social media game, her more direct approach to many issues has made her too easy a target for Republicans, and the pundits are too well-practiced at painting a target on her and making viewers believe that she’s an extremist.
That’s why Buttigieg’s Fox News appearances have been so crucial to his chances. Just like how it’ll be hard to convince voters that the economy is great when they can’t afford groceries and gas, it’ll be hard to convince them that Buttigieg is a radical leftist extremist when he’s appeared on their TV regularly and made some great points in the face of hostile Republican questions.
Buttigieg’s push to play the wider field hasn’t always worked. Last year, he slipped on trans sports participation, and that was a big disappointment. He needs to do better on things like that. As a candidate, he’ll get asked about trans people in the next election, and he needs to be unequivocal once the campaign starts. But he’s the sort of communicator who can probably excel at highlighting the nonsense that underlies so many of those questions when the time comes.
When it comes to electability, Buttigieg is a military vet with a family, and compared to Trump, his character must be effectively unimpeachable. The only thing that Republicans might hold against him is his sexuality, so we just have to hope that by 2028, America is ready to elect an out gay man.
