Back to the candidates: Here is the current rundown of the top ten Democratic frontrunners.
Top 10 Democratic Presidential Candidates for 2028 - Who is Leading the Race?
It looks like the top three are Harris, Newsom and Buttigieg.
According to one particular author, perhaps. I see no reason to believe any of these are necessarily head and shoulders ahead of other potential candidates.
Indeed; at this juncture, a year and a half before even the first primaries, it’s name recognition and not much more than that.
At this juncture the title of the thread is still “Frontrunners for Democratic presidential nomination in 2028”.
Right, but we Dopers are, one would hope, more politically sophisticated than the average poll-respondant, and can look beyond mass name-recognition to see the qualities that might eventually bring a candidate out ahead of the pack (at which point they’ll naturally gain all the name recognition they need).
I know he’s not popular here, but here’s an interesting story about an upcoming Rahm Emanuel speech in Tel Aviv in which he’s expected to go after Israel and essentially say no more free lunch for Israel from the US.
Not a frontrunner, but he’s definitely gonna be a runner. His message on Israel could impact the other candidates’ message.
According to polls.
But Harris and Newsom are way ahead, with Buttigieg, AOC and Shapiro in a close pack 10+ points behind the top two.
Not quite.
**
Going forward, Emanuel plans to say, Israelis should regard U.S. support as expressly contingent: On reviving a serious commitment to Palestinian sovereignty; On rejecting dreams of asserting dominion beyond official borders in pursuit of “Greater Israel”; On abandoning a security strategy that emphasizes brutally effective military force with scant attention to diplomacy**
But Rahm has weird stances-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#Political_positions
Since the 2024 presidential election, Emanuel has expressed opposition to transgender rights, stating in a 2025 interview that he supports the incarceration of transgender women in men’s prisons and that he does not believe a man could become a woman.[221][222]… Emanuel has been described as a “vocal Zionist”.[232] In June 2007, Emanuel condemned an outbreak of Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip and criticized Arab countries for not applying the same kind of pressure on the Palestinians as they have on Israel. At a 2003 pro-Israel rally in Chicago, Emanuel told the marchers that Israel was “ready for peace” but would not get there until Palestinians “turn away from the path of terror”.[79] In 2025, Emanuel said he “support[s] the state of Israel”, but that if he were elected president he would be willing to publicly disagree with Israeli policies
Emanuel is Jewish, for those who don’t know much about him, so that’s an interesting/significant stance for him to take.
OTOH, I’m not convinced that he could even win a primary in his home state of Illinois right now. He served three terms in the U.S. House, and two terms as mayor of Chicago, as well as a range of appointed political positions for the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations. He wasn’t particularly popular as mayor, and at least when he was younger, he was known for being aggressive and caustic.
Is he laying the groundwork for a presidential run? It’s certainly possible, though I am also wondering if he’s looking to build towards some other political run (maybe governor of Illinois if Pritzker steps down).
This is true but I would swap him out for Johnson right now. I would also take Lightfoot back in a heartbeat.
I suspect it is either this or he is running for the VP slot. I see no way he would ever get the Dem nomination for POTUS.
Emanuel wasn’t a particularly good mayor; I think that both Lightfoot and Johnson were/are even worse.
Johnson is leagues worse than either of them but continuing this would be a hijack so I will drop this line of discussion.
Agreed on both counts. 
I haven’t checked into this thread in a while, and there’s something like 1000+ posts to sift through, but I’ve become extremely impressed with John Ossoff out of Georgia. At 39, he may be a bit too young, but I think he’s someone to watch, if not in 2028, then 2032.
But if he runs in 2028, he’s got my vote as of now. I think AOC is too polarizing at the moment.
EDIT: corrected Ossoff’s age from 37 to the correct 39, as pointed out by @iiandyiiii
He’s 39, by the way. I like him too, but I’m not sold yet.
You’re right. 39. I’ll edit that real quick.
Purple-state (or even red-state) senate Democrats present an interesting conundrum, though: On the one hand, being able to win in a purple or red state portends well for their ability to win the nation, but on the other hand, we need them right where they are, too.
He looks okay to me, his political positions on Wiki are decent.
True. Now if that state has a Dem governor that can appoint, that makes it less damaging. And of course it depends on what the numbers are in the Senate. 54 Dems? We can take that chance. 51 Dems? Too damn close.
Exactly equal numbers of Democratic poll respondents believe the party should move towards the left vs towards the center:
With such an equal split, the defining characteristic of candidates going forward, IMO, should be and is going to be, rhetorical willingness and eagerness to fight Trump and fascism. 80+% of the poll respondents believe the party needs to fight harder against Trump and Republicans. That’s the thing that unites Democrats right now. Those who support the Iran war, support/defend ICE, SCOTUS, the filibuster, etc., are all going to be at the wrong end of what Democratic voters want. All of the above needs to be dismantled in its current form.
Right now, the “fight” candidates seem to all be on the left side of the party. They’re the ones talking about abolishing ICE, expanding SCOTUS, eliminating the filibuster, etc. Those don’t have to be left/center issues. Nothing is stopping centrist Democrats from trying to jump on the “fight” bandwagon.
I’ve not been keeping up with this thread. Just popped in to remind everyone that whoever the Dem nominee turns out to be, and no matter how much that person reflects what Democrats want, they have to be someone the majority of the rest of the country will vote for. Cf. Kamala. 
She never had a prayer. Neither does AOC. Nor Pete.
As I’ve said all along, I believe that to be electable, the candidate has to be a white, straight, Christian (or at least not blatantly NON-Christian, i.e., a secular Jew would probably be okay), and above all, a MAN. Borderline good ol’ boy with some charisma and gravitas.
Politics is the art of the possible. Face reality and accept it.
Obama would have destroyed Trump. Easily. We need a candidate with Obama-level talent, if at all possible.