No party has held the White House more than two straight terms since the early 1950s, with one exception: the Republicans' twelve-year run from 1981 to 1993. This stat could tell us a lot about how 2028 could go, if Donald Trump hadn't suffered a four-year interruption at the hands of Biden in 2020. But given we're only two years into a Republican Party victory lap, the next election at this point feels like a toss-up. The Democrats aren't helping their own case. They can't agree on who should lead the party, or why, after an embarrassing 2024 loss. Or should I say "decline."
The Kalshi prediction market for the 2028 U.S. Presidential Election Winner places a weak conviction on Republicans winning, with J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio both sitting in 1st and 2nd with 19% and 16% odds respectively. That's not exactly a landslide of confidence that either can win. Sitting in 3rd and 4th for the Democrats are Jon Ossoff (11%) and Gavin Newsom (10%). This despite Gavin Newsom continuing to stay tight-lipped about whether he'll even run. Kamala Harris still very much looks like she's waiting in the wings for her chance to spring into action too. She and her squad feel that she was set up for failure in 2024 and now she wants a do-over. Plenty of senior Democrats and major donors are dreading the prospect, though Harris wouldn't enter empty-handed. Every national poll of possible candidates has put her on top, often by a wide margin. That kind of early lead tends to hold up. Biden was ahead in nearly all the polling two years out from his 2020 win, and Hillary Clinton was comfortably in front at the equivalent stage of the 2016 cycle. But neither of them was facing the crisis of confidence that Kamala is dealing with.
Whether the American public has a short enough attention span to move past the perceived cover-up of Biden's mental decline, and will let Kamala off the hook, remains to be seen. But her kowtowing to the vocal minority on the far left is still a hot-button issue for many inside the party. Can she tack far enough towards the center to capture votes from moderates, or will she get tied down in identity politics and concerns over the Israel-Gaza war? Regardless, it seems a lot of the big-money Democratic donors have reached a boiling point, and only care about one thing: winning. Unfortunately for Harris, they don't think she has what it takes to get it done, despite the raw deal she may have gotten in 2024. It's why, despite leading the polls, she's only at 4.7% to win on Kalshi.
There's also still the political celebrity wild card to consider, Tucker Carlson, currently sitting at only 2.2% to win the 2028 presidency on Kalshi. The former Fox News star is being goaded to make an entrance as a third-party candidate under their so-called "America First" movement by the likes of Marjorie Greene and Joe Kent, former head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, much to the dismay of the MAGA movement's core political elite. Tucker posted on X, "MAGA was betrayed. We all were. It's time for a new path forward." For his part, Carlson has remained adamant that he won't be running for president in 2028. But if he does decide to run, it certainly wouldn't be the first time his private motivations (and actions) contradicted his public statements. Right now, Kalshi odds have him sitting at 27% to run for the Republican nomination, around a 1-4 chance he'll decide to run. How big of a bite a third-party candidate could take out of the electorate is anyone's guess. No third-party candidate has won the presidency since 1848, although everyone remembers Ross Perot taking 19% in 1992. None of that matters when you're only picking the winner. But before anyone rules out Carlson as a pipe dream, remember, Trump was a 100-1 long shot to win back in 2015, when the idea of him becoming the 45th president was considered laughable.
The split in the Republican Party over the Epstein files and the war in Iran has shaken MAGA ahead of the November midterms, but it hasn't caused it to crumble. Trump can be credited with maintaining a loyal base no matter the obstacle. Who he ultimately ends up endorsing and backing will be a deciding factor. At this point in time we're just too far out to have any kind of concrete opinion on who will win. Ronald Reagan handed the keys to his own vice president George H.W. Bush in 1988. It tracks similarly to a Trump-to-Vance handoff in 2028. But Bush had the benefit of inheriting a six-year peacetime economic expansion. It remains to be seen what the economy or the world will look like in two years, but peace is most certainly off the table given the three wars currently being fought. We're still too far out to call it. One thing's for certain: the 2028 Presidential Election won't be easily decided.