Who is actually leading the 2028 White House race?
Four potential contenders in the 2028 race for the White House have caught American voters' attention with their early jockeying
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has put four names at the front of American voters' minds when they think about the 2028 White House race: Republicans JD Vance and Marco Rubio, and Democrats Jon Ossoff and Pete Buttigieg.
None of the four has formally entered the race, and the parties' 2028 nominating contests remain more than a year away. That leaves ample time for fresh contenders to surface and for voters to change their minds. Among Republican voters polled, about 45% said Secretary of State Rubio would be an "excellent" presidential candidate, while 43% said the same of Vice President Vance.
Among Republican voters polled, some 45% said they believed Secretary of State Rubio would be an "excellent" presidential candidate, while 43% said the same of Democratic voters. The poll was completed on Monday and surveyed 1,705 US adults nationwide, including roughly 500 registered voters from each party.
Its margin of error was 5 percentage points for Republican and Democratic voters. President Donald Trump looms large in both parties as he struggles with an approval rating near the lowest of his career. Republicans are split on whether their preferred candidate should break with Trump or follow in his footsteps.
Democrats, who are flying high after routing Republicans in the November 3 congressional elections, are divided on how aggressively to go after the president, such as through impeachment.
'Managed to do his job'
Trump has been quizzing allies on whom they prefer between Vance and Rubio. In a Sunday interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," he said he would "not necessarily" endorse anyone in the Republican primary.
Barbara Rezner, a Florida attorney who voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections, prefers Rubio to Vance, whom she considers too far right and too close to the president. "Rubio has managed to do his job. He's stayed off most people's radar because he hasn't done anything too far left, too far right, too crazy," Rezner said.
Among Republicans, the modest but growing dissatisfaction with Trump is centered on the president's decision to launch a war on Iran that has driven fuel prices higher. Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, has been notably absent from many of the so-far fruitless peace talks with Iran.
Who are the outsiders?
Vance has shown signs of wanting to distance himself as well, saying publicly that the Republican drubbing in the midterm elections was due to the war with Iran.
A dozen-odd other Republicans are also part of the national conversation over 2028 contenders. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is among the best-regarded, with 32% of Republicans rating him as an excellent option. Others, such as Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and Texas US Senator Ted Cruz, have their fans but also many detractors.
Ossoff sits at the top of many Democratic voters' lists, with 29% of the party's registered voters rating him as excellent. He has grabbed headlines in recent months by calling Trump corrupt and unfit for office in unusually direct language. Last week Ossoff won his re-election race by 18 percentage points in Georgia, a state Trump carried by 2 points in 2024.
Buttigieg also gets the excellent rating from 29% of Democrats. He ran for president in 2020 and is better known nationally than Ossoff. About one in five Democrats say they have never heard of Buttigieg, compared with roughly one in three who say the same about Ossoff. Very few Republicans are unfamiliar with Vance, but about one in six say they don't know who Rubio is.
For candidates in either party, starting the election cycle with more name recognition can save money that would otherwise be spent getting the candidate's name out. But examples abound of little-known candidates catching fire during the campaign, as happened with former President Bill Clinton.