The next presidential elections are still over three years away, but pollsters are already cautiously testing the waters, asking voters in different states how they feel about those who are rumored to run for the country’s top office in 2028.
What they found is that, in the deep blue state of New Jersey, a surprising number of voters would support MAGA Vice President JD Vance’s bid for the White House if he was to run in a hypothetical 2028 matchup against California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
The poll, run between October 28 and 29 among 800 New Jersey likely voters by nonpartisan public opinion pollster SoCal Strategies, found that Newsom was ahead by a mere one point, leading Vance 43 to 42. That is a narrower margin than Kamala Harris’ six-point win in the state in 2024, and significantly smaller than Joe Biden’s 16-point victory in 2020.
What Does The Poll Findings Tell Us?
New Jersey has long been a political stronghold for the Democratic Party. The Garden State has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate for the past nine elections—since 1992—and last voted for a GOP senator during the Nixon administration. But things have started to shift last year.
Harris’ margin of victory in the state was surprisingly narrow, and the recent poll shows that this gap could get even smaller, depending on who is on the ticket. The gubernatorial race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli is also a lot closer than many observers expected.
The same SoCal Strategies poll gives Sherrill ahead with 52 percent of the vote, with Ciattarelli garnering 45 percent of the vote. According to the pollster, Sherrill’s advantage is due mainly to young voters aged 18-29, who back her by a 67-29 margin, voters with a college degree (57-42), women (55-41), independents (50-41) and Black voters (79-16).
In other polls, Sherrill’s margin is much narrower. In a recent poll by co/efficient, Sherrill has 48 percent of the potential vote against Ciattarelli’s 47 percent.
The results of the race—which will be held on November 4—are likely to give observers an idea of just how far New Jersey has started to lean toward the right. Newsweek contacted SoCal Strategies for comment by email on Thursday.
Will JD Vance and Gavin Newsom Run In 2028?
There is still a lot of uncertainty over who will run for the White House in 2028. President Donald Trump has been teasing and joking about the possibility of a third term, though the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment would technically forbid it.
The president, however, has recently ruled out running for Vice President, saying it would be “too cute.” But he did not mention who he would think would run for the top seat.
In the history of the U.S., it is quite common for vice presidents to gain their party’s nomination for president—though they are not always successful in winning the race.
Only 15 of the 49 vice presidents in the nation’s history have become presidents, NPR reported—including eight who got there after a serving president’s untimely death. Biden is among one of the few vice presidents who succeeded in his bid for the White House after having served as vice president for Barack Obama.
On Monday, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One ahead of his trip to Japan, Trump floated the idea of Vance running for president with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his vice presidential pick, as per Politico.
But in a recent podcast interview with the New York Post’s “Pod Force One,” Vance brushed off rumors of his running in 2028, calling them “premature,” but did not deny the possibility of discussing the idea later in Trump’s second term.
“My attitude is that the American people elected me to be vice president,” Vance said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to make the president successful over the next 3 years and 3 months, and if we get to a point where something else is on offer, let’s handle it then,” he added.
“But let’s at least get through the next couple of years and do good work for the American people before we talk about politics.”
The Democratic Party has also not yet spoken about what their pick for 2028 will be. Harris has recently suggested that she might run again, saying during an interview with the BBC that she was “not done” with U.S. politics yet.
“I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones,” she said, adding that her grandniece will see a female president in the White House “in their lifetime, for sure,” and that it could “possibly” be her.
Earlier this week, Newsom confirmed that he was considering running in 2028, a decision that he said he might take after the 2026 midterms.
“Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise,” Newsom said on CBS News Sunday Morning last weekend in response to a question on whether he would give serious thought to a potential presidential run after 2026. “I’d just be lying. And I’m not—I can’t do that,” he said.
Newsom’s second term as governor ends in January 2027. He will not be able to run again after that because of term limits.
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