LOS ANGELES.–Democrat pollster Nate Silver, 47, who got the 2024 election completely wrong, now hazards a prediction about who’s the front-runner in the distant 2028 Democrat race for his Party’s nomination. “She was going to be my first pick, and I can’t conceal that now, right?” Nate Silver told former FiveThirtyEight podcast host Galen Druke in a video posted on Silver’s Substack newsletter, the “Silver Bulletin.” Years away from the 2028 presidential race, Silver finds himself speculating about 35-yer-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [AOC] who manages through her rallies with 83-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stay in the headlines. Bernie and AOC have been holding rallies around the country promoting the fake narrative that the country has been taken over by oligarchs or extremely rich billionaires. Bernie an AOC never talk about Democrats oligarchs.
What possible reason other than publicity would Silver hazard a reckless guess about his party’s 2028 nomination? “I think there’s a lot of points in her favor at this very moment,” Druke said, showing how much support AOC receives in the Democrat Party. But if the Democrat Party listens to 80-year-old Democrats strategist James Carville, it’s just the opposite message. While it’s true AOC garners headlines with Bernie ranting against 78-year-old President Donald Trump and his mega-billionaire Elon Musk, Carville says openly that her progressive politics doom the Democrat Party to failure in the future. Carville believes the Democrat Party needs another Bill Clinton type, the same person he rode to the White House in 1992 and 1996, showing off Carville’s claim to fame. But in 1992 and 1996 Texas oilman H.Ross Perot took 20% of the GOP voter.
Carville has been saying almost daily in the headlines that Democrats need to prove they can beat Republicans, not Democrats. Contending that Trump won the 2024 election easily because 60-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris move the party to far to the left, Carville sees no hope at all with a candidate like AOC. Trump had a field day attacking Kamala and AOC for their progressive positions on energy, health care, the border, the economy and foreign policy, all showed failures under 82-year-old former President Joe Biden. “In a Yale poll just out this week, AOC has the highest net favorability rating of the Democrats that the asked about,” Druke said. Why Silver and Druke trust as small Yale University poll is anyone’s guess. AOC and Bernie like to slam Trump, something popular on late-night TV talk shows but not with independent voters that make up the electorate.
Kamala lost to Trump because she lost the independent vote, some 35% of the electorate in 2024. What makes Silver and Druke think that AOC’s progressive politics, including her “Green New Deal,” appeals to any demographic group in the Democrat Party? Whether the Yale poll showed that Kamala and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg trailed close behind AOC, doesn’t mean than any of the Democrat front-runners would command any real interest in the 2028 presidential race. Druke thinks the Democrat presidential primaries will “be a contest for attention,” something he thinks AOC commands with authority. “The media is kind of obsessed with her and they’re going to follow her every move, which means she’ll be able to be able to keep the attention on her throughout the primary process,” Druke said. Druke thinks all Democrats are progressives.
Speculation this far out on 2028 presidential candidates makes Silver and Druke look like they’re in some kind of academic bubble. Do they both really think that progressives can lead the party of victory alienating independent voters? It’s one thing to win a Democrat primary still another to appeal in a general election. Democrats are fit-to-be-tied with Trump dominating the headlines with his controversial tariffs causing upheaval on Wall Street. Two progressive pollsters speculating about their personal preferences doesn’t foretell what happens in 2028. If there’s anything valid about Carville’s arguments, he sees Democrats in need of a centrist candidate, like Clinton was in 1992, to win back enough independent voters to win the White House. If you listen to Silver and Druke, you’d think that progressive politics appeals to the vast majority of voters.
Democrats find themselves with too much time on their hands watching a Trump presidency unravel many of the important progressive issues related to civil rights, gender rights and women’s reproductive rights. Kamala tried to sell her progressive agenda to voters but turned out to alienate independents. “You listen to her message today, it’s all about the economy, and she’s really hitting Trump on, I think, his most obvious weakness most quickly, which is the number of billionaires in his Cabinet,” Druke said. Democrats rely on their own oligarchs to generate the whopping sums of cash needed to run elections. Kamala spend an unprecedented $1.5 million in cash in just six weeks. Democrats certainly don’t have a monopoly on the economy, certainly not progressive candidates that depend heavily on government spending. AOC sounds good now but probably not later.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
