2028 Democratic presidential nominee

Why we chose it

The wild card here is Ossoff at 15% — that's the number screaming for a video. He's emerged as a 2028 contender basically by becoming an "internet sensation" churning out viral content for his Senate reelection campaign, with rally lines like calling the Trump administration "the Epstein class" going viral. Michelle Goldberg wrote a NYT piece titled "Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President," arguing that if you cooked up an ideal 2028 candidate in a lab, he'd look like Ossoff — a southerner from a reddish state with Black-voter appeal, and a Jewish critic of Israel who could bridge the party's Zionism divide.

Catch: he's said publicly he has "zero interest" in running, warning against playing "fantasy football" with 2028 while democracy's on the line in the midterms, and he has to survive a brutal Georgia Senate race first.

Newsom at 21% is the establishment default — termed out of California, boosted by publicly battling Trump, openly flirting with a run. AOC at 16% rode a national tour with Bernie that spiked her from 8% to 12%+. Harris collapsed to 8% because even former supporters are telling reporters they want fresh faces. Rahm Emanuel at 5% is the joke tier — the "moderate scold" lane nobody's actually asking for. Shapiro/Beshear are the "safe governor" hedges if the party panics about AOC.