Although the latest media buzz suggests Kamala Harris is losing her grip on presidential nominee prospects for 2028, no one should count her out. There are those within Democratic circles who believe the party will be unable to sideline her despite the disastrous (but “flawless,” according to some) 2024 campaign. Still, Harris enjoys only a narrow lead over three other progressive Democrats in a recent poll of voters likely to participate in the 2028 presidential primaries. Former Transportation Director Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have emerged as strong contenders, but another potential competitor is also very much in the mix. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is not ruling out a 2028 White House bid and is polling competitively with the other three top “maybe” candidates.
The progressive publication Zeteo, in collaboration with Data for Progress, recently published a survey of likely Democratic primary voters that gauges the 2028 field of Democrats. Harris is a maybe since she is considering running for governor of California, the primary election for which will take place in June of 2026.
When included in the list of potential candidates, Harris leads with 18%, with Buttigieg at 14%, and both Ocasio-Cortez and Cory Booker tying for third at 12%. Without Harris, the pecking order is Buttigieg (17%), plus Cory Booker and AOC tied at 14%. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz round out the top five at 10% and 7%, respectively.
Four additional Democrats whose names are often mentioned in conversations about the next presidential election are all adrift in the single digits. They are all state governors. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania came in at 6% in the survey. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and the fabulously wealthy governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, were favored by just 4% of likely primary voters, while Kentucky’s chief executive, Andy Beshear, received only 2% support.
Cory Booker Eyeing the White House?
Sen. Cory Booker, who these days seems to be in the habit of making statements that bear no resemblance to reality, says he’s focused on his 2026 re-election bid. He hasn’t closed the door on a 2028 campaign, though.
A mid-April Echelon Insights poll has Booker at 11%, behind Harris at 28%. Buttigieg and Ocasio-Cortez tie for third place with 7%. But this poll is more encouraging for Cory Booker – who gained nine points since the same poll in March – than it is for Kamala Harris, who lost five points since the last survey.
Booker’s polling bump appears to be a reward for his recent 25-hour filibuster on the Senate floor. The stunt was almost entirely dedicated to ranting wildly about Donald Trump and the much-touted but as yet unsubstantiated “threat to Democracy.”
Elected Democrats have not yet figured out what the rest of America – probably including most Democratic voters – have known for some time: If your entire platform is dedicated to smearing one person and hoping the people will hand power over to you based on nothing more than how much they have been convinced to hate and fear that specific person, you have a problem. Cory Booker appears to be entirely consumed by his disdain for President Trump. Like all his fellow 2028 Democratic potentials, however, Booker has offered nothing in the way of positive, constructive policy.
In 2028, focusing on that one man, who will not even be on the presidential ballot, is a losing strategy. In fact, once the 2026 midterms are over – unless Democrats win control of the House – Trump-bashing will no longer be a viable campaign strategy at all.
According to an April 17 Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill poll, 31% of California's likely voters would pick Harris, the Golden State’s former attorney general. That might be a tempting prospect for Harris when measured against her realistic chances of becoming the next president of the United States.
No More Room for Moderates
All the leading Democratic candidates share a common dedication to the same radical progressive agenda that American voters roundly rejected in 2024. The party is showing no signs of considering a move back to the center. On the contrary, as things presently stand, in April of 2025, it appears the Democratic Party will field the furthest-left presidential candidate in its history, three and a half years from now. That holds true whether the eventual nominee is Harris, Booker, AOC, or Buttigieg.
There’s a long way to go yet, and perhaps a lot of Democratic voters are hoping that someone will emerge from right field to steer the party back to rationality.
Now, a handful of prominent Democrats have chosen a new hill to die on: the return to the US of an MS-13 gang member and suspected domestic abuser who was recently deported to El Salvador. That they would dedicate themselves so firmly to bringing back a deported illegal alien with known ties to one of the most vicious gangs in the Western hemisphere – a man whose American wife applied for a restraining order against him – shows just how far the party has fallen.
Not only are these Democrats entirely adrift from the sentiments of most Americans, but they are now interfering in the domestic policy of a foreign country. The spectacle of it is jaw-dropping. And Cory Booker is now all in on this outrageous attempt to bully the government of El Salvador into freeing an El Salvadoran citizen from prison and sending him to a country he has no authorization to enter.
The former illegal alien in question, Kilmar Ábrego García, is now outside the jurisdiction of any US court. Nevertheless, Booker intends to travel to El Salvador to lobby for García's return. It’s all about the publicity, of course, since neither Cory Booker, the US Supreme Court, nor President Trump himself has the authority to demand García be sent to America.
By bestowing the 2028 presidential nomination on any of their current leading candidates, Democrats could be crossing the Rubicon. History shows that no political movement or party survives a romance with extremism to move back to the mainstream. Sometime before the start of the presidential primary season, Democrats have what could be, for their party, a life-or-death decision to make.
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