the eight 2028ers with the most at stake in the midterms

Somehow, we are just a month out from the midterms, and Democrats nationwide are once again trying to fight through their electoral PTSD and see life through blue-wave-tinted glasses.

And to be clear, nobody should take their eyes off the ball, given our unrivaled ability to snatch mandates for fascism from the jaws of Brat Summer.

But unfortunately, I write a blog about the 2028 primary, and there is always an angle. Indeed, the midterm stakes are sky-high for some of our favorite recurring characters, and what happens on Nov. 3 (or by the end of the month, if you are California) could reshape the presidential power rankings.

So without further ado – for those who unwind from their GOTV grind by reading about the next election – here are the 2028ers with the most on the line…

Illinois Gov. JB PRITZKER started this cycle off with a bang – and a cha-ching – pouring $10M into the IL-Sen primary to help Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton pull a huge upset.

Last month, Pritzker launched a $20M PAC that’s already targeting at least five House districts Trump carried by double digits, gunning for ogres Max Miller (OH-07) & Brandon Herrera (TX-23), while boosting three young Black candidates in the South: Shomari Figures (AL-02), Chris Jones (AR-02), & Justin Pearson (TN-09). Flipping any one of these seats would be a signature win. 

JB has also sent $1M to House Majority PAC and written 6-figure checks to the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, & DGA’s NV-Gov PAC, along with generous donations to a slew of state parties and other progressive organizations. Oh yeah, and he dropped another $65M of his personal fortune into his own reelection bid, which doubles as a pre-presidential holding machine. 

Plenty of reward, and little risk for JB Pritzker next month.

Being the Chair of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) has plenty of upside in a blue wave year.

Dems are now favored to flip Iowa, Alaska, & Ohio with Georgia & Nevada considered toss-ups. Texas & Florida are very close, too, and Vermont & New Hampshire – and even Nebraska & Alabama – could be in play if the wave is more tsunami-like

But the job is hardly risk-free. Latino leaders have been ratcheting up pressure on Beshear to help Gina Hinojosa (TX), whose stellar campaign has her well within striking distance of Gov. Greg Abbott despite an 8-to-1 deficit on the airwaves.

Thus far, ANDY BESHEAR has resisted those pleas, while spending in at least 10 other states. DGA even sent $1.25M to JOSH SHAPIRO this summer, who was up 20+ points and had $36M in the bank. 

Texas is expensive, to be sure – hence the lack of outside support even for James Talarico, whose race is the most likely tipping point for control of the Senate – but if a rising Latina superstar falls just short of an Ann Richards-esque miracle in Austin and the consensus is Beshear hung her out to dry… hooboy!

For Mr. Beshear, whose own presidential profile is built on defying the odds in a ruby red state, it could be a boom or bust November.

It’s a funny moment for the Democratic Party. On the one hand, it remains rudderless; enfeebled; so toxic that its only hope in many states was to clear the field for an Independent, and its own candidates are actively running against it. On the other hand, things are going so well that Senate races in Kansas and Nebraska are closer than ones in Georgia and North Carolina.

It’s a moment when a bowhunting, god-fearing, fraud-fighting former public corruption prosecutor who sings America the Beautiful at each campaign stop – a reluctant Democrat – appears on a glide path to be Iowa’s next governor, while a progressive seminarian is favored to become Texas’s first Dem Senator-elect since the year before he was born.

In a party desperate for a white knight, Rob Sand and James Talarico are truly two of the whitest and knightliest candidates in recent memory.

I think it would be very hard for Rob Sand or James Talarico to turn around and immediately run for president; it would be a middle finger to their new constituents, many of whom would’ve just taken a leap of faith to cross party lines, and would fundamentally undermine the core promises of their respective candidacies – namely, the promise of a different, more selfless politics. 

But if the pair of wunderkinds pull off their respective red state coups, they’ll surely be subject to plenty of wishcasting – and when enough people beg you to run for president, it can get hard to say no.

You could easily throw the aforementioned Gina Hinojosa (TX-Gov), Adam Hamilton (KS-Sen), Scott Colom (MS-Sen) into this sudden hero category.

The JON OSSOFF midterm script reads like a beefed-up version of the Sand/Talarico white knight story – and this is a man who knows a thing or two about beefing up. 

In Ossoff’s case he’s not a brand new face, but many Dems are just getting acquainted, and they are falling fast. Rather than pulling an upset in a Trump +13 state, his unlikely political feat would be an emphatic win in a reddish battleground. Such an outcome would vault him even further into ‘oh my god, plz save us, king’ territory, stress-testing the resilience of his earnest desire to do the job he’s running for.

Whether or not he is White House-curious, Mr. Ossoff is clearly determined to not just defeat Nazi-adjacent ‘scandal piñata’ Mike Collins, but to vanquish him and consign his politics to the ash heap of history. And he appears well on his way.

Entering this cycle, holding this GA-Sen seat looked like a tall task. Now, the bigger question is whether Ossoff wins by closer to 2 points or 12 – and that delta carries significant weight.

Beyond providing rocket-fuel to his own political standing, each point he pads the margin increases the likelihood that Keisha Lance Bottoms pulls out the governor’s race. And if she wins, he could run for president knowing a Dem replacement was waiting in the wings, rather than his critical Senate seat being handed to the GOP. 

I still do not expect Jon to run in 2028. He does, genuinely, seem disinterested. But as I said before, when enough people beg you to run for president, it can get hard to say no.

In some respects, PETE BUTTIGIEG has already won 2026. 

The quasi-unemployed Traverse City dad has been putting in work, endorsing and/or campaigning for 80+ candidates around the country, up & down the ballot:

It’s not just a volume game; Team Pete has been both strategic and willing to take risks. He was the only 2028er to endorse former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in his successful challenge of longtime Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Brandon Dukes, who recently flipped a Trump +18 PA House seat in a special election.

He flew to Butte, MT for a town hall dedicated entirely to boosting the Montana Plan, a novel ballot initiative that would circumvent Citizens United to ban dark and corporate spending in elections. Remarkably, even as top Dems universally embrace the cause of getting money out of politics, the only other 2028er I’ve seen even mention this game-changing measure is AOC, who endorsed it while stumping for Sam Forstag (MT-01).

As I’ve written previously, Pete has really prioritized strong candidates in winnable reach districts. Tellingly, he and MARK KELLY are basically the only 2028ers whose presence is regularly welcomed in such places – those vast swathes of the country where the Democratic Party is still persona non grata. (factio non grata?)

If the Blue Tsunami cometh, those are precisely the kinds of districts that will shock people by narrowly tipping, and Buttigieg will have a hell of a story to tell. Even if the wave turns out to be a mirage, he’s built a ton of goodwill and relationships with local Dems around the country. Sometimes in presidential politics, the real treasure truly is the friends you made along the way.

I have previously dissected the masterful endorsement game AOC played this primary season, maximizing her impact with late engagement to boost progressives in close races (see: Abdul El-Sayed, Sam Forstag, Analilia Mejia, Randy Villegas) while wisely resisting demands she get involved in others (see: Francesca Hong, Graham Platner, Cori Bush, Saikat Chakrabarti).

But that was all prologue. Now, it’s time for the main story.

Sizing up AOC’s politicking often feels like a choose-your-own-adventure book. 

For example, on Sunday, Puck’s Peter Hamby wrote about why Tom Perriello (VA-05) is leaning on her in a Trump +12 district, while Axios’s Alex Thompson & Holly Otterbein wrote about how Dems in tough races are distancing themselves from her.

But everyone seems to agree on one thing: If she runs in 2028, her biggest challenge will be convincing people that a 30something Latina socialist can win a general election.

Nobody is more keenly aware of this challenge than the Congresswoman herself, an astute political observer who has, of course, lived 3+ decades as a woman of color in America, and 8 years as a Fox News avatar. She is tracking. 

Arguably, no race in the country carries greater political import for any non-participant than the Michigan Senate contest does for her. She did not simply endorse progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the primary; she stumped at a trio of GOTV megarallies and cut closing ads for him, helping secure the nomination for a guy who centrists view as a huge liability in a must-win race.

In her perfect world, Abdul does not just win, but wins bigly and outperforms Jocelyn Benson (MI-Gov) on the same ticket. In a nightmare scenario, Benson wins comfortably and Abdul falls short, allowing Republicans to hold the Senate despite a blue wave.

This is the weightiest midterm question mark for AOC, but hardly the only one. Others worth watching include: 

How such things play out could fundamentally shift the narrative – and the calculus – for AOC as she weighs her 2028 options.  

I’ll keep this one short, as I wrote a whole post back in January about how much JOSH SHAPIRO has riding on 2026. Since then, the outlook has only gotten rosier for him.

He is coasting toward a blowout reelection – a race so uncompetitive that he’s avoided both the expected onslaught of spending against him (he has a 43-to-1 edge on the airwaves) and scrutiny over whether he’ll serve the full term. He has handed $5.7M he doesn’t need to the state party to help flip the state Senate and four key House seats.

Compared to other 2028ers, Shapiro has had a muted national presence this year. But don’t let the quiet fool you. Everything is going according to plan. 

He may well emerge from the midterms with a 20+ point victory in an A-tier swing state, 3+ new House seats, and PA’s first Dem trifecta in 33 years. Rest assured, you’ll be hearing from him plenty in 2027.