Since the triumphant return of President Trump in November 2024 â and it was a triumph, with Trump winning all seven swing states and the popular vote â the Democrats have reacted by lurching hard left, electing a radical mayor in , attempting to take purple Virginia far left with a crazy gerrymandered Congressional map (which was struck down by the states Supreme Court as unconstitutional), and on Tuesday nominating radical (and deeply troubled) Graham Platner as their candidate in Maine to face off against the moderate and widely admired Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senates powerful Appropriations Committee.
Radical candidates are expected to emerge as the partys Senate nominees in Michigan and Minnesota as well. The “Democratic Socialists of America” hostile takeover over the shattered glass of the Democratic Party seems inevitable.
With the Democrats at best in an internal civil war between socialists and far-left liberals, which way will a post-President Trump GOP turn?
The front-runner for party leader and 2028 nominee has to be considered to be Vice President J.D. Vance, but sitting Veeps dont just accept the nomination save for extraordinary circumstances such as the Democrats faced in 2024 when Vice President Harris was handed the nomination when the physical and mental infirmities of President became too obvious to ignore.
Looking back to 1988, there is sitting Vice President George H.W. Bush, who had to fight off Senator Robert Dole for the GOP nomination in 1988. Four years earlier, former Vice President Walters Mondale had to withstand a challenge from Senator Gary Hart. More recently sitting VP Al Gore didnt just get handed the nomination after loyal service as President s #2, he had to face and defeat Senator Bill Bradley to get the Democratic nomination in 2000.
The rule, then, is that Vice Presidents have to fight through primaries to win their parties nominations for president, and the exception to that rule is . Look how that turned out. Parties emerge stronger when their primaries are contested.
So even if Vice President Vance seeks the office President Trump holds, he has to expect a , South Carolina and beyond. While it is widely expected that President Trump will endorse his hand-picked #2, 2027s debates â and there should be many â and 2028s caucuses and primaries should be boisterous affairs as the “era of Trump” winds down.
President Trump and his message of “Make America Great Again” has dominated the Republican Party since the summer of 2015, when Trump methodically took down every Republican opponent in a crowded field, one-by-one. Trump swept aside all challengers from within the GOP in 2024, choosing not even to appear on debate stages with them.
There will be no such dominating figure for the Republican race ahead in 2028. Most GOP observers expect at least four contenders not named Vance: Florida Governor is poised for a second run. Georgias popular incumbent Governor Brian Kemp and Virginias former governor Glenn Youngkin are widely tipped to be setting up their campaigns. Former Secretary of State and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in President Trumps first term Mike Pompeo is expected to join the field as well and brings along his career as a stellar West Point and Harvard Law School graduate and years in Congress as a member from Kansas.
Thats just the obvious quartet of challengers to Vance, and then there are the talented and ambitious senators like Texas and Pennsylvanias David McCormick. Suddenly we have seven very qualified candidates debating about the future of the country, and that doesnt include members of the Presidents cabinet who have run before and might again: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
President Trump may endorse and throw his considerable political weight behind VP Vance â or Secretary Rubio or somebody else. Nobody knows and its very doubtful t
