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Is Kamala Harris Still Leading the 2028 Primary?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  January 30, 2025 3:45 PM

There have been polls coming out about the 2028 presidential field, especially for the Democratic primary, since days after former Vice President Kamala Harris lost to now-President Donald Trump. Believe it or not, despite such losses, Harris is leading the Democratic pack, though that may merely be because she's the freshest choice in the minds of her party's primary voters. Will that last, though? Could she finally win a single primary vote, unlike how she had to drop out in December 2019, before any votes were cast for 2020? Unlike 2024, when Democrats merely installed her as the replacement nominee rather than holding another primary to gauge voter input? While we're still some years away, it's interesting to see what the polls say.

On Wednesday, McLaughlin and Associates released a poll of likely voters conducted January 22-27. While Harris is still in the lead among the 414 likely Democratic primary voters, with 33 percent, she's gone down 2 points since December. Further, the poll shows that 50 percent of all likely voters have an unfavorable view of her, including 40 percent who say they do so "strongly."

The next highest person is former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, though he's only at 9 percent, and has gone down 3 points in that time. Behind Harris, actually, is the 22 percent who say they're "undecided," though that option has gone down 3 points as well. 

Behind Buttigieg, who may run for U.S. Senate in the open seat out of Michigan, or for governor there, is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, at 7 percent. Shockingly, even with the fires having ravaged California this month, and the mismanagement from Democratic leadership there, as well as how there's a recall against him, he hasn't gone up or down. 

Not far behind Newsom, who has gone up by 3 points, is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), with 6 percent. There was chatter around Thanksgiving weekend about her being the future of the party and thus the nominee, but that would represent a very leftward shift if so. She also has a habit of blaming the Jews when Democrats lose, as she did with the 2024 election losses. 

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Everyone else is at 2 or 3 percent or less, including Harris' running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who has dropped to 3 percent, a 2-point downright shift. He's certainly reminded us lately how we dodged a bullet with him. Still, one potential candidate with 2 percent is still worth mentioning, as sports commentator Stephen A. Smith is a new candidate, as many headlines have been highlighting. 

Monday's VIP examined a list of 12 Democratic candidates who apparently "make sense," at least according to the Washington Post. Harris was fourth on the list. Not surprisingly, Smith wasn't on the list, but neither was AOC. The top spot on the list belonged to Josh Shapiro, the popular and moderate (enough) governor of Pennsylvania, a key swing state that awards 19 electoral votes to the candidate who wins the commonwealth. How does he fair according to this poll? Not too great; he's at just 3 percent, as are three other candidates, and this is down 2 points from December. 

There's plenty of evidence that Democrats haven't learned from their losses last November, and that they may not do so in time for the 2026 midterms or even the 2028 election. If they still go with Harris, it will become even more apparent that they haven't learned any kind of lesson.

This isn't the only poll coming out that shows potentially bad news for Democrats, far from it. As Matt covered earlier on Thursday, a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday shows that by 57-31 percent, Americans have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. Respondents are more evenly split when it comes to their view on the Republican Party, with a 45-43 percent unfavorable view.