2028 presidential election | After Trump, who?

Three years before the presidential election, potential Democratic candidates no longer hide their ambitions. On the Republican side, the contenders are becoming more discreet, knowing that Donald Trump will want to choose his successor. But they are nevertheless known. So who are the most serious candidates aspiring to lead the two main parties in the 2028 election?

(New York) Democratic Party

Gavin Newsom

The Democratic governor of California sought to chart a path toward a revival of his party following the defeat of Kamala Harris. Host of a new podcast called This Is Gavin Newsomhe hosted figures from across the political spectrum, including the late Charlie Kirk, who he agreed with on the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports. Some Democrats derided him.

But Donald Trump “came to the rescue” twice rather than once. First, by deploying some 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 members of the Marine Corps to Los Angeles last spring. Officially, these soldiers were tasked with protecting federal installations during demonstrations against the president’s migration policy. But Gavin Newsom galvanized Democratic opposition against the deployment by calling it illegal political “theater.” And the lower courts agreed with him.

Donald Trump did not stop there. Last summer, he lobbied for Texas to change its electoral map to allow Republicans to win five additional seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. Following the principle that we must “fight fire with fire,” Gavin Newsom responded by organizing a referendum to authorize a redistricting of the electoral map of his state to give the Democrats five additional seats in the House of Representatives in 2026. Originally, this referendum was considered a great risk for the governor. However, nearly 65% ​​of voters supported his proposal on November 4.

As governor of California, the least affordable American state, Gavin Newsom is far from having the ideal profile for a presidential candidate. But Democrats see him as a real fighter and an anti-Trump troll of the first order.

JB Pritzker

The Democratic governor of Illinois is running two campaigns at once. At the end of June, Jay Robert (JB) Pritzker, 60, launched his campaign to win a third term as governor of his state, a position which will be at stake in November 2026.

Donald Trump provided him with one of his main electoral themes: the defense of freedoms. How ? By greenlighting one of the most aggressive anti-migrant operations in the Chicago area and deploying the National Guard there.

These actions allowed the governor of Illinois to compete with his California counterpart for the title of leader of the Democratic resistance to the alleged authoritarianism of Donald Trump.

“I think everyone understands that right now we have an authoritarian leader in power,” JB Pritzker said on the show. Jimmy Kimmel Live!last September. He’s essentially destroying everything that truly matters to working families across the United States, and no one is stopping him. »

The governor makes this speech on every platform and in several states, thus laying the foundations for an inevitable presidential campaign.

But who in the Democratic Party would want another billionaire in the White House? As a descendant of the owners of the Hyatt hotel chain, JB Pritzker is the richest American elected official after Donald Trump. According to the magazine Forbesit is worth 3.9 billion US.

The Illinois governor has already answered questions about his wealth on several occasions. In a meeting with Democratic activists in Nevada, he recalled that very few voters in his state were looking for a “Ukrainian American Jewish billionaire” when he first ran for governor in 2018. Nonetheless, he won.

Kamala Harris

The former vice-president belongs to the old school, the one which considers that a presidential aspirant should not show his cards too quickly. “It’s in three years!” », she replied to a journalist from New York Times who recently asked her if she would consider running for president again.

Kamala Harris had just finished what was supposed to be the final leg of her promotional tour for 107 Daysher book on the 2024 presidential campaign. Tour considered a great success: wherever she stopped, the author was welcomed by large and enthusiastic crowds, who snatched up her work. According to its publisher, it has sold more than 600,000 copies, all formats combined, making it the best-selling memoir book in 2025.

Since then, new stages have been added to this tour. In 2026, they will include South Carolina, a crucial state in the Democratic primary calendar, and several cities with many black voters, from Detroit to Montgomery to Memphis.

According to the news site Axios, these steps demonstrate that the unsuccessful 2024 candidate is indeed thinking about the 2028 meeting, and not just about promoting her book.

Another sign of her interest: on December 12, Kamala Harris gave a speech to officials of the Democratic National Committee which marked a break with what she was saying in 2024.

“Both parties have lost public trust,” she said. The government is seen as fundamentally incapable of meeting the needs of the population… People are fed up with the status quo and are willing to disrupt everything to force change. »

But can she embody this change?

Republican Party

J.D. Vance

The influence of the Vice President of the United States is not limited to social networks, where he is hyperactive. On December 4, the White House published a new National Security Strategy, part of which appeared to have been borrowed from JD Vance’s speech in Munich last February.

The document described Europe as a continent threatened not by Russia, but by online censorship, repression of “patriotic” parties and “massive” immigration, just as the American elected official did in his speech received with indignation by European leaders.

In the United States, this speech delighted followers of the MAGA movement. The latter still place JD Vance at the top among their favorite candidates to succeed Donald Trump, far ahead of Donald Trump Jr., Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio and Robert Kennedy Jr., according to the polls.

Last August, Donald Trump himself recognized the obvious, estimating that his vice-president was “probably the favorite at this point” to succeed him at the head of the populist movement of which he is the founder.

In this role of heir apparent, JD Vance presents himself as an ardent defender of the policies of the president and Stephen Miller on immigration. It also defines an identity ideology breaking with Abraham Lincoln’s idea according to which a new citizen is as American as the signatories of the Declaration of Independence if he adheres to its principles, at the forefront of which is the equality of “all men”.

While defending this ideology which earned him being associated with the rhetoric of “blood and soil”, JD Vance minimized the racist and anti-Semitic messages exchanged by young Republicans. And he refused to condemn host Tucker Carlson’s decision to interview neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

Ted Cruz

“In the last six months, I have seen more anti-Semitism on the right than I have seen in my entire life. It’s poison, and I think we face an existential crisis in our party and in our country. »

The Republican senator from Texas has not yet officially announced his candidacy for the 2028 presidential election. But he is increasing the number of statements aimed at distinguishing him from certain leading figures of the MAGA movement, including JD Vance and Tucker Carlson, one of the vice-president’s most important allies in the media.

At the end of October, during a speech in Las Vegas where he denounced right-wing anti-Semitism, Ted Cruz also attacked Tucker Carlson, accusing him in particular of having interviewed the neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes without contradicting him.

“If you sit next to someone who says that Adolf Hitler was really cool and his mission is to fight and defeat world Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in this evil,” he said.

Ted Cruz also denounced threats made by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr against ABC following a controversial monologue by Jimmy Kimmel on the death of Charlie Kirk.

“It’s just like a mobster who walks into a bar and says, ‘Nice bar, it would be a shame if something happened to it,’” the senator said during an episode of a popular podcast, The Verdictof which he is the host.

In 2016, Ted Cruz was the only Republican candidate to fight Donald Trump until the GOP convention. After calling the future president all the names, he fell into line. He seems to want to come out.

Marco Rubio

The Secretary of State and White House National Security Advisor repeats to anyone who will listen that he will not run for president in 2028 if JD Vance is a candidate.

“If JD Vance runs for president, he will be our candidate and I will be one of the first to support him,” Marco Rubio told White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to the magazine Vanity Fair.

He has already said the same thing in public.

Donald Trump and other Republicans have already floated the idea of ​​a presidential ticket consisting of JD Vance for president and Marco Rubio as his running mate.

But the expansionist aims of the Trump administration could change the situation. The military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro represents, in the short term, a success that reflects on Marco Rubio. The latter was the main architect of the military pressure campaign targeting Caracas.

And it may not be over yet. The fall of Nicolás Maduro is part of a project that the former senator from Florida has been nurturing for years and whose ultimate objective is to deal a fatal blow to Cuba, a dependent ally of Venezuela. Objective shared by Donald Trump.

“Cuba is on the verge of collapse,” declared the American president aboardAir Force One on January 4. “I don’t think we need to intervene. »

Marco Rubio, son of Cuban exiles, would obviously benefit from such a scenario politically. To the point of calling into question the predominant place of JD Vance among the Republican presidential candidates? The question could arise.

But the expansionist aims of the Trump administration could also turn against Marco Rubio. After all, the United States has already celebrated military operations that resulted in nightmares, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya.