2028 Democratic Power Rankings: The Field Lining Up to Run for President

On November 7, 2028, the United States will choose its next president. The stakes could hardly be higher. The contest will move one of America’s two major parties out from the shadow of Barack Obama and his successors, and move the other out from the shadow of Donald Trump, for the first time in nearly a generation. Someone is going to win that election, and someone will be set on the path to inauguration as America’s forty-eighth commander-in-chief.

The clock is ticking, and by every available signal, the race has already begun.

In ordinary times, trying to predict a 2028 field this early would be a fool’s errand. But the United States is not living in ordinary times. At the one-quarter mark of the twenty-first century, power players inside both major parties are already jockeying for position, and in the Democratic Party especially, the early contest is heating up fast. With more than three years to go before election day, the field of candidates is already starting to take shape.

Key Takeaways

The Democratic Party in 2025 has no presumptive nominee and no clearly anointed successor, leaving an unusually open and crowded field for 2028.
Kamala Harris leads early polling at 27 percent with a nine-point lead, but carries the weight of her 2024 general-election loss and her ties to Joe Biden.
Gavin Newsom enters as the other kingpin, with national name recognition and donor strength, but sits at just seven percent in early polling and faces skepticism even at home in California.
A deep tier of strong contenders, including Pete Buttigieg, Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, Cory Booker, JB Pritzker, and Tim Walz, brings high-level experience and varied ideologies.
A restless “new wave,” led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and including Ro Khanna, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Chris Murphy, and Andy Beshear, embodies the demand for generational change.
Dark-horse names such as Rahm Emanuel, Mark Cuban, Gina Raimondo, and even a term-limited Barack Obama round out a field of well over a dozen plausible candidates.
Identity, wealth, and proximity to an unpopular former administration recur as the field’s defining liabilities.

This HomeFronts analysis takes a close look at the race to the presidency from the Democratic side: the kingpins, the strong contenders, the new wave, and the dark-horse candidates who could play a decisive role in what comes next. The picture that emerges is of a party with no anointed heir, no incumbent to defend, and a deep, unusually crowded bench of ambition.

The central tension running through the entire field is simple to state and hard to resolve: a party hungry for generational change must decide whether it wants the familiar, battle-tested names at the top, or whether it will gamble on someone new.

A Party Without a Presumptive Nominee

The Democratic Party in 2025 does not have a presumptive nominee. Gone are the days of an incumbent Democrat running for a second term, and gone too are the days of a clearly anointed successor to a popular president, as Hillary Clinton was in 2016. Yet even without a truly dominant figure at the helm, there is still a frontrunner, and no honest conversation about the Democratic primary can begin with anyone other than Kamala Harris.

That absence of a sure thing is what makes this cycle unusual. A field with no obvious leader rewards name recognition, donor networks, and the ability to command attention early, which is precisely why a handful of established figures loom so large over the proceedings. It also leaves room, in theory, for a newcomer to break through. Both dynamics are already visible, and both will shape how the next three years unfold.

Kamala Harris: The Frontrunner With a Target on Her Back

Sixty years old, hailing from Oakland, California, with past service as a state attorney general, a US senator, and the vice president of the United States, Harris enters the 2028 field with undeniable advantages. The greatest is her status as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, which has given her near-universal name recognition. That makes her immediately appealing to casual voters in a crowded, chaotic contest where lower-profile candidates risk fading into the background.

Her resume stands head and shoulders above the rest on paper, no rival will match her record as vice president, and she is deeply connected to the party’s organizing arm, especially the donor class that funneled more than a billion dollars into her campaign in just a few months. Early polling reflects this: Race to the White House shows Harris leading at 27 percent, with a nine-point lead over the candidate in second place.

But prominence cuts both ways. The American electorate already had the chance to elect Harris in 2024 and declined. She became the first Democrat to lose the popular vote to Donald Trump, and she lost all seven critical swing states. She is closely tied to the legacy of Joe Biden, an unpopular president whose policy achievements could not offset voter skepticism about his capacity to lead.

In a cutthroat primary, her unsuccessful 2024 run, her closeness to Biden, and her status as the candidate to beat will put a target on her back from day one. That matters: Harris struggled to absorb attacks in her 2019 primary bid, ultimately dropping out before any votes were cast. As a woman of color, she is also expected to face significant headwinds in a general election.

Notably, Harris may not run at all. She is said to be weighing the presidency against a 2026 run for governor of California, and while she could theoretically run for president as a sitting governor, she would be unlikely to do so. According to Democratic insiders, she intends to make a final decision in late summer of 2025. If she chooses to chase the nomination, she will be a top player, but she will also be in the crosshairs of every rival, and they will have plenty of ammunition.

Gavin Newsom: National Reach, Hometown Doubts

The other clear kingpin is the man whose governor’s seat Harris might be eyeing. Gavin Newsom, the fifty-seven-year-old governor of California, previously served as lieutenant governor and mayor of San Francisco. Term-limited, he could ride his momentum as governor into a well-timed primary entry in early 2026.

His credentials are formidable. California is, by itself, the world’s fourth-largest economy as of April 2025, behind only the United States, China, and Germany, which means that although Newsom is a state governor in a federal republic, his experience is in some respects closer to that of a major world leader. His national name recognition is high, and he is tightly bound to California’s donor class and the broader party infrastructure.

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Newsom has never hidden his ambitions. He has made high-profile foreign-policy trips abroad, staged a televised debate with arch-conservative Florida governor Ron DeSantis entirely of his own making, launched a podcast, and become a fixture on cable news. He is charismatic, telegenic, an accomplished campaigner, and a proven fundraiser with donors across the country.

For all that, Newsom carries real baggage. Voters in California soured on him enough that he faced a recall effort in 2021, and while his standing rebounded on the strength of his handling of challenges such as the Los Angeles wildfires, independents and Republicans there have been slow to return, hinting at trouble with swing voters nationally. His brand is complicated: Republicans cast him as an uber-liberal governor of the quintessential liberal state, while progressives criticize his willingness to host far-right figures relatively uncritically on his podcast, his retreat from past progressive stances, and his intermittent efforts to work with Trump. He has become polarizing across nearly every ideological constituency, and his record is weighed down by rising crime, widespread homelessness, and ballooning budget deficits.

The polling underscores the concern. Newsom ranks only fifth among likely candidates in the average of early surveys, at just seven percent. In polls that exclude Harris, he rises only to ten percent. Worse still, one April 2025 poll found that nearly sixty percent of Californians felt Newsom should avoid a presidential run, including seventy-five percent of independents and nearly forty percent of the state’s own Democrats.

Like Harris, Newsom will be a strong contender, and like her, he will be surrounded by rivals eager to turn his liabilities against him.

The Strong Contenders

Harris and Newsom are the two prospective giants of the 2028 primary, but they are far from the only Democrats who could be major players. The upper echelon is likely to include a group of powerhouse politicians with high-level experience, deep party connections, and widely varied ideologies. Several of them already poll ahead of Newsom, a reminder that early frontrunner status is no guarantee of staying power.

What unites this tier is credibility: each could plausibly assemble the money, endorsements, and infrastructure of a serious campaign. What divides them is everything else, from ideology to identity to the particular baggage each would carry into a national race.

Pete Buttigieg and Wes Moore: Faces of Generational Change

Pete Buttigieg, currently polling second behind only Harris, first made his mark with a failed but promising 2020 primary bid during his eighth year as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. A military veteran who deployed to Afghanistan and a gay man who came out during his time as mayor in 2015, Buttigieg is unusually young at forty-three. He went on to serve four years as secretary of transportation under Biden, and has since drawn acclaim for his charisma and his articulate, well-reasoned communication style, including a notable ability to engage right-wing audiences without abandoning his positions.

His liabilities are real: as a former Biden official he carries baggage by association, and he faced controversies at the Transportation Department. Those associations should be easier for him to shed than for Harris, though his sexuality may prove a more difficult barrier in a general election. Crucially, Buttigieg embodies a theme that recurs throughout the field, the Democratic electorate’s hunger for generational change, and his decision to pass on a winnable 2026 Senate seat suggests his ambitions point squarely at the presidency.

Wes Moore, the forty-six-year-old governor of Maryland since 2023, offers another version of that generational promise. A veteran of the US Army who later led a media production company, Moore insists he is not running in 2028, including in statements made just before this analysis was prepared, but almost no one in the Democratic establishment believes him. The denial is a well-worn line for rising politicians, one even Barack Obama used in 2006, and Moore’s schedule of public and press appearances suggests he is laying serious groundwork.

He earns his spot through passionate support from the party’s insider class and his appeal to both moderates and progressives. His weaknesses: falling approvals and rising disapprovals in Maryland in recent months, and his status as a relative political neophyte, which could hurt him in head-to-head matchups against someone like Buttigieg, also young but considerably more seasoned.

Whitmer, Booker, Pritzker, and Walz

Gretchen Whitmer, the fifty-three-year-old governor of Michigan since 2019, brings a proven record and genuine progressive credentials, paired with an ability to work alongside moderates, independents, and conservatives at home. She is well connected within the party and has unusual personal stakes, having been the target of a complex kidnapping plot by a far-right militia in 2020. But she has taken a striking risk by associating more closely with Trump than most rivals would dare, framing it as pragmatic leadership on behalf of her state.

Her repeated appearances in Trump’s orbit, and especially a much-mocked attempt to hide behind folders in the Oval Office to dodge cameras, are likely to haunt her in a primary. Like Newsom, she is term-limited, and she has declined the Michigan Senate race that Buttigieg also passed on.

Cory Booker, the fifty-six-year-old senior senator from New Jersey, has served since 2013 and, like Harris, ran unsuccessfully in the 2020 primary. A consummate politician long discussed as a 2028 prospect, he broke through on April 1 of this year with a record-setting twenty-five-hour speech on the Senate floor protesting Trump’s conduct. The marathon did not block any specific legislation, but it became a viral rallying point for a party hungry for someone to shake it from complacency.

He now stands fourth in early polling, ahead of both Newsom and Whitmer. His liabilities include past criticism for seeming inauthentic and for drifting from the progressive wing, yet he is among the rare candidates who seems to sit at several intersections at once: youth and institutional knowledge, progressivism and centrism, personality and savvy.

JB Pritzker, the sixty-year-old governor of Illinois since 2019, is a bulldog of Democratic politics, brash and at times combative, with deep ties to the party’s donor wing. He has run one of the most progressive administrations of any governor, facing unusually little intraparty pushback while advocating liberal social policy alongside a focus on labor, infrastructure, and criminal-justice reform. Recently he has seized on frustration with elected Democrats, calling out his own party and urging mass mobilization against Trump.

His biggest liability, perhaps a disqualifying one in the current climate, may be his net worth: Forbes estimates his fortune at over three billion dollars. He has been cast both as the billionaire Democrats need to beat the billionaire in the White House and, less flatteringly, as another member of the ultra-rich who cannot represent ordinary people.

Tim Walz, the sixty-one-year-old governor of Minnesota since 2019 and a former congressman of more than a decade, surged to national prominence as Harris’s 2024 running mate. A man of modest means and powerful rhetorical instincts, he became a fast favorite of Democratic voters, and he has since capitalized on frustration with the 2024 campaign by openly admitting it made major missteps and was too risk-averse. He has not ruled out a 2028 run, which could set up a direct confrontation with Harris and make him an avatar for moderates frustrated with the establishment. His chief liability is his association with the 2024 defeat, but if he clears that hurdle, he is well positioned, since the other attacks he weathered in 2024 proved to have little staying power.

The New Wave

From the established contenders, the field turns to an arguably more interesting group: the new wave of Democratic leadership, candidates who can seize on the promise of generational change in different ways. Some earlier names, including Moore, Buttigieg, and Walz, could arguably belong here too. But those figures have held multiple major offices and could expect significant party backing. This group will largely have to chart its own course to rise to the top, which makes them both the field’s biggest risks and its most intriguing possibilities.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna: The Progressive Heirs

The most prominent of the new wave by a wide margin is thirty-five-year-old Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known nationally as AOC. Representing New York City since 2019, when she unseated a ten-term incumbent in an upstart primary, she has become a leading voice of the party’s progressive wing. Popular with young voters and a forceful advocate for policies such as universal healthcare and the Green New Deal, she polls strongly, trailing only Buttigieg and Harris in early averages, and has been informally cast as the ideological successor to Bernie Sanders.

Her time in office has also made her a perpetual lightning rod for conservative and moderate criticism, and she is widely seen as synonymous with a wing many voters consider too extreme, even where individual policies are popular. As a woman of color, she is likely to run into the same barriers Harris faced. She has signaled possible interest, both through a recent national tour with Sanders and by turning down a top Congressional oversight role she had fought hard to win, but if she runs she will face skepticism within her own party that she could not win a general election even if she captured the primary.

Ro Khanna, the forty-eight-year-old congressman from California since 2017, is a fellow heir to the Sanders wing, with an especially strong line in progressive economic populism: sweeping reforms to labor, corporate, and fiscal law, plus aggressive anti-corruption action. He has distinguished himself by doing something few rivals have attempted, singling out a specific adversary, taking a notably harsh stance toward Vice President JD Vance. That could tie the two men together and improve his odds if Vance becomes the Republican nominee.

Like AOC, he will face questions about his firmly progressive approach and its viability in a general election, and he will confront barriers tied to identity. The conventional wisdom holds that precedent matters enormously for candidates of color; while Moore and Booker can follow in Obama’s footsteps as Black men, the same path does not exist for Khanna, who is of Indian descent. The three Indian Americans who have run for president, Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, all fell short.

Shapiro, Polis, Murphy, and Beshear

Josh Shapiro, the fifty-one-year-old governor of Pennsylvania since 2023, nearly became Harris’s 2024 running mate and is uncommonly popular at home. He has a proven record of winning independents and even some conservatives, with approval ratings above sixty percent in 2024, a rare feat in a swing state. Charismatic and effective on stage, his moderate brand is seen as a possible bridge to voters who abandoned the party in 2024.

But he draws some of the field’s harshest criticism for his positions on the Israel-Hamas war, repeatedly reaffirming support for Israel’s military campaign, declining to call for a ceasefire, and condemning pro-Palestinian protests. That issue, along with other stances seen as anti-progressive, could complicate a primary run and might push him rightward in a general election.

Jared Polis, the forty-nine-year-old governor of Colorado since 2019, fits a similar profile. The first openly gay man to serve as a US governor, he won reelection in 2022 and has advanced major Democratic policies at home. A ten-year veteran of Congress, he carries an unusual background, having been the only Democrat in the libertarian, conservative Liberty Caucus before recasting himself as a libertarian Democrat with notable success at advancing party objectives.

He is a genuinely unconventional candidate, and his refusal to rule out a 2028 run suggests he intends to test that distinctiveness, with the attendant risk that the electorate simply will not know what to make of him. He is also weighed down by his role as a prominent Biden surrogate, having defended Biden even as concerns over his age peaked in 2024, and by praise he has offered for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is deeply unpopular with Democrats.

He has yet to register even two percent in early polling.

Chris Murphy, the fifty-one-year-old senator from Connecticut since 2013 and a congressman before that since 2007, long held a reputation in Washington as a dedicated bipartisan dealmaker. Since the 2024 election, he has delivered scathing condemnations of Trump across television, social media, and public appearances, backed by spending designed to put him in front of as many voters as possible. His message of fierce resistance to Trump and opposition to the power of the billionaire class could resonate with disillusioned voters. His core problem is name recognition: he remains relatively unknown outside Washington, and if his ideas catch on, better-known rivals could co-opt them and leave him behind.

Andy Beshear, the forty-seven-year-old governor of Kentucky since 2019, may be the most intriguing of all. He holds the rare distinction of being a Democratic governor in a consistently deep-red state, and not merely surviving but thriving: he is the most popular Democratic governor in the country, hitting sixty-five-percent approval in early 2025 even as Kentucky handed Trump a 2024 victory with roughly the same share of the vote. A moderate but by no means a conservative, he voices support for policies one would expect to be unpopular in Kentucky, yet he won reelection by a wide margin in 2023.

Democrats nationwide regard him with intense, sometimes almost zoo-exhibit curiosity for his ability to win independents and conservatives without sacrificing much on policy. He faces name-recognition problems and may struggle to capture the imagination of more liberal primary voters, but there is real value in a political enigma running in strange and uncertain times.

The Dark-Horse Candidates

Beyond the fourteen-plus contenders already named, a small handful of dark-horse candidates could upend the entire calculus. A few notable figures do not make the cut, and for clear reasons: Roy Cooper, ex-governor of North Carolina, looks set to run for an open Senate seat in 2026; Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor, is too scandal-plagued for a national primary; and Raphael Warnock, the Georgia senator, has only ever won his own seat by narrow margins. Others, including New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey, and Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, rarely appear in expert analyses of the 2028 field, and these rankings rest on that aggregate expertise.

Sports-media personality Stephen A. Smith does not make the list either, for reasons that scarcely require explanation.

Rahm Emanuel, sixty-five, has held an extraordinary range of posts: senior adviser to Bill Clinton, chief of staff to Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago, congressman, and ambassador to Japan. A force in Democratic politics, he has been openly laying groundwork for 2028, working podcasts, speaking gigs, and back-room meetings of party operatives. Whether he could actually mount a successful bid is an open question; his talents have historically served him best behind the scenes, and his tenure as Chicago mayor was tumultuous at best. He may be most potent operating on behalf of another candidate he likes, but in an era defined by a brash, combative commander-in-chief, he may try to style himself as the antidote, an anti-Trump.

Mark Cuban, the sixty-six-year-old multibillionaire business magnate and reality-television star, also positions himself in the anti-Trump vein. He has been a fierce public critic of Trump for years across a broad range of issues, framing himself as a leader whose business acumen lets him see through Trump’s rhetoric. Yet, like Pritzker, he may be disqualified in many Democrats’ eyes by his place in the billionaire class, and it is unclear that voters would accept him as an anti-Trump figure.

What is clear is that his persona resonates with a broad audience, including the conservative-curious social-media personalities Democrats have struggled to reach. Cuban has denied that he will run in 2028 and has separately suggested he might run as a Republican, leaving his true intentions a matter of open speculation.

Gina Raimondo, fifty-three, is far less public-facing. She served as governor of Rhode Island from 2015 to 2021 and then as secretary of commerce under Biden. She announced in late April that she is actively considering a run, and her deep party connections would give her a real insider advantage. Her path is not easy, though: she would face a one-two punch of low name recognition and her place in the unpopular Biden administration, made heavier by the fact that she held a major economic post during a period defined by frustration with Biden’s economic record.

The Obama Wildcard and the Third-Term Question

The most unconventional name of all is Barack Obama. At sixty-three, he brings the not-inconsequential experience of eight years as America’s forty-fourth president, and with it, term limits under the Twenty-Second Amendment. In 2028, that constraint might not be the obstacle it appears.

Trump, himself term-limited at the end of his current administration, has repeatedly floated a run for reelection despite the constitutional barrier. In a world where Trump can pursue a third term, the logic runs, so can Obama. Trump’s allies appear aware of this: a 2025 resolution introduced by a Republican congressman would permit a third term only for presidents whose two prior terms were non-consecutive, a carve-out that would remove Obama from contention.

It is unlikely such a bill could pass or survive judicial scrutiny. In a hypothetical Trump-Obama matchup, an April poll found Obama leading by a full six points. For now that contest is pure fantasy, but with Trump signaling he may attempt a third term, Obama cannot be ruled out entirely.

What Comes Next

In the coming months, some of these candidates will surge in prominence while others make a graceful exit, seeking other offices or concluding that the presidency is not in their immediate future. The defining variables are already visible: who can convert early name recognition into durable support, who can satisfy a party hungry for generational change without alienating the moderates it lost in 2024, and how the unresolved questions of identity, wealth, and proximity to the Biden years ultimately weigh on the field.

The American Democratic primary will twist and turn for years before any votes are cast, and a parallel breakdown of the likely Republican field is still to come. For now, the only certainty is that with more than three years to go, the field of 2028 presidential hopefuls is genuinely beginning to take shape, and the jockeying has only just begun.

Presented by

Simon Whistler

Simon Whistler is one of YouTube's most prolific educational creators. HomeFronts is his deep dive into geopolitics, modern conflict, military history, and the civilian and societal dimensions of global events.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the early frontrunner for the 2028 Democratic nomination? Kamala Harris leads early polling at 27 percent, with a nine-point lead over the second-place candidate, according to Race to the White House. Her edge rests on near-universal name recognition from her 2024 run, an unmatched resume, and deep ties to the party’s donor class.

Why might Kamala Harris not run in 2028? Harris is reportedly weighing a presidential bid against a 2026 run for governor of California. Democratic insiders say she intends to make a final decision in late summer of 2025. While she could theoretically run for president as a sitting governor, she would be unlikely to do so.

Where does Gavin Newsom stand in early polling? Despite high national name recognition, Newsom ranks only fifth among likely candidates at about seven percent. In polls excluding Harris he rises only to ten percent, and one April 2025 survey found nearly sixty percent of Californians felt he should not run, including seventy-five percent of independents.

Which candidates represent the demand for generational change? The hunger for generational change runs through much of the field, but it is clearest among younger figures: Pete Buttigieg (43), Wes Moore (46), and a new-wave group led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (35), along with Ro Khanna, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Chris Murphy, and Andy Beshear.

What made Cory Booker’s standing rise? Booker broke through on April 1, 2025, with a record-setting twenty-five-hour Senate floor speech protesting Trump’s conduct. Though it blocked no specific legislation, it became a viral rallying point and helped lift him to fourth place in early polling, ahead of both Newsom and Whitmer.

Could Barack Obama actually run again in 2028? Obama is term-limited under the Twenty-Second Amendment, which would normally bar a third term. The scenario only arises because Trump has floated a third-term run despite the same barrier. A hypothetical Trump-Obama poll in April found Obama leading by six points, though any such matchup remains, for now, a fantasy.

Which prominent figures did not make the rankings, and why? Roy Cooper appears headed for a 2026 Senate run; Andrew Cuomo is seen as too scandal-plagued for a national primary; and Raphael Warnock has won his own seat only by narrow margins. Phil Murphy, Maura Healey, Ruben Gallego, and Stephen A. Smith likewise fall outside most expert analyses of the field.