In 2028, don't bet against the vice presidents

Whether still serving or not, VPs have a formidable record when seeking their party's nomination

To the extent that Democrats have the emotional energy for anything other than opposing President Trump, you can pick up a sudden interest, even anxiety, about who will be their party’s presidential nominee in 2028. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, politics does, too. But it will be at least a year and a half before someone can emerge above the rest.

There is no question that the next presidential election will feature generational change. During his 2020 campaign, Joe Biden said that he would be a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Well, that bridge has now been burned for all but maybe the very youngest of baby boomers (those born 1946-64).

With the notable exceptions of two children of the '60s (Barack Obama and Kamala Harris) and one born in the 1930s (John McCain), our presidential nominees for more than a quarter century have hailed from the 1940s. Curiously, three were born in consecutive months of 1946: Trump (June 14, 1946), George W. Bush (July 6, 1946), and Bill Clinton (Aug. 19, 1946). Generation X (1965-1980) will likely have its turn next, although Vice President J.D. Vance (born in 1984) represents the millennial generation (1981-1996).

Dozens of Democratic wannabes are going to crisscross the country over the next year and a half, campaigning for midterm candidates, making the rounds of political shows and podcasts, and on the circuit of Jefferson-Jackson-type dinners and fish fries. After 18 months, which ones will have created a buzz or gotten a bit of traction? Which messages are resonating, and which ones are falling flat?

Should she forgo a bid for governor of California next year, Kamala Harris will likely get a bye and an automatic berth in the 2028 Democratic presidential quarterfinal bracket. Harris comes out of last year’s campaign in a political purgatory, neither clearly a hot property nor dead. Few would say she was great in her 107-day campaign last year, but nor was she dealt a particularly strong hand.

Harris almost certainly would love to have said something different in her Oct. 8 appearance on ABC’s The View, when she was asked what she would have done differently from President Biden. A good case can be made that in the closing weeks of the campaign, when Trump and Harris were running neck and neck in the swing states, the 2 or 3 percent of truly undecided voters wanted to see if Harris would offer anything different from Biden. When she didn’t, that group seems to have moved en masse into the Trump column, albeit only halfheartedly.

Former vice presidents have a mixed record at winning their party’s presidential nomination after they leave office. In 1968, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, won the GOP nomination, but then again, he had been the presidential nominee in 1960 as well, losing very narrowly. In 1984, Walter Mondale, who had been vice president under Jimmy Carter, won the Democratic nomination. In 1996, however, Dan Quayle, who had been vice president under George H.W. Bush, was unsuccessful in his bid for the nomination.

On the GOP side of the ledger, it is hard to imagine President Trump graciously relinquishing the spotlight; any Republican seeking the party’s 2028 nomination will need to tread gingerly lest they antagonize the current Oval Office occupant, who will likely frown upon the idea of anyone taking his post. It will be easiest for Vance, as the sitting vice president, to hit the fundraising circuit without coming across as coveting the boss’ chair. Trump will play Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 54, off of each other, vying for his approval.

Vance could be in the catbird’s seat if for no other reason than history. Over the last century, five out of six sitting vice presidents who sought their party’s presidential nomination have won it. In 1960, after eight years of Eisenhower, Nixon got the GOP nod. Lyndon Johnson’s VP, Hubert Humphrey, won the contentious nomination in 1968. George H.W. Bush won the 1988 GOP nomination after eight years of Ronald Reagan. Al Gore secured the Democratic slot after Bill Clinton’s eight years in the White House.

The lone exception is a bit of a trick question: The last sitting vice president to seek and lose his party’s presidential nomination was in 1940. John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president for his first two terms, had a falling-out with FDR and challenged his boss for the 1940 Democratic nomination. Garner lost and was replaced on the ticket by Henry Wallace, who, after a term, was replaced by Sen. Harry S. Truman.

It raises an interesting question of what the post-Trump Republican Party will look like. It is hard to imagine the GOP soon becoming anything besides MAGA Lite or MAGA Redux, but it often is hard to replicate the real thing. No Democrat has created anything like a Barack Obama clone; Trump might be even harder.