Friends,
So many of you participated in last week’s Office Hours discussion about who should be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 that I think it will be useful to have your views about the “second tier” of candidates (second tier only in terms of national name recognition at this point).
Last week, I listed the top four potential Democratic candidates by current name recognition: Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Out of the 7,174 of you who voted on these four, only 6 percent chose Kamala Harris; 12 percent were for Gavin Newsom; 26 percent of you chose Pete Buttigieg; and 6 percent were for AOC.
The rest of you — 49 percent — wanted someone else.
So today we’re going to focus on the top “someone else” options in current polls: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. (That still leaves a “third tier” comprising California Congressman Ro Khanna, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and former congressman and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel — all of whom we’ll get to soon.)
Here’s a summary of the current second tier’s pros and cons...
