Why 2028 may be Democrats’ last best chance

If Democrats don’t win the presidency in 2028, they may have a long wait. Four years later in 2032, their path to 270 electoral votes gets even steeper and their anti-Trump rhetoric will sound even staler. The next presidential election may not be “now or never” for Democrats, but their future looks much worse without it.

According to the American Redistricting Project’s estimates from the census’s latest 2030 projections, 11 electoral votes and congressional seats will shift as follows: four from California and one each from Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island; four to Texas, two to Florida, and one each to Idaho, Utah, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Based on 2024 presidential election results, these net out to Democratic presidential states losing nine electoral votes and Republican states gaining nine electoral votes from America’s population shifts. While that may not seem much in the quest for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, it is for Democrats. To appreciate how difficult this makes Democrats’ math, look at their 2024 results.

Kamala Harris won just 226 electoral votes and lost all seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). These seven states’ 93 electoral votes are crucial for Democrats, because they are not close to flipping any of the other 24 states Donald Trump won. To win the presidency, then, Democrats need to win 44 electoral votes – almost half the swing states’ 93 total electoral votes.

That won’t be easy in 2028. But in 2032, if census projections prove accurate, it will be harder when nine electoral votes shift toward states Republicans won in 2024. That shift drops Democrats’ 2024 electoral vote total to just 217 and means they would be 53 electoral votes away from winning. Democrats would have to win 53 electoral votes from the seven swing states’ projected 91 electoral votes (because Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are each projected to lose an electoral vote after the 2030 census).

This essentially means Democrats would have to win another swing state’s worth of electoral votes in 2032 – in fact the needed nine additional votes they would need match Wisconsin’s projected electoral vote total.

Democrats’ post-2028 math problem is matched by their post-Trump message problem.

Democrats clearly intend to use their anti-Trump attacks in 2028; however, this is the last presidential election they can plausibly do that. Trump will have been off the ballot for eight years by 2032 and his impact likely greatly diminished. To understand how much, consider how large a factor Obama was in 2020, eight years after he had won by larger margins than Trump did in 2024.

Democrats have been dependent on running anti-Trump campaigns since 2016. By 2032, that strategy will be out of date. Yet absent an anti-Trump message, Democrats are left without one. They have been running against Trump but not for anything. Democrats have not run a positive campaign – one based on what they are for – since Obama ran for reelection in 2012.

The issues that Democrats have rallied around since Trump took office last year clearly have not closed their yawning favorability gap deficit. As of Jan. 31, the RealClearPolitics Average of national polling shows Trump with a -10.1 percentage-point deficit (43.3%-53.4%). Deep as this appears, it is just half of Democrats’ -20.4 percentage-point deficit. And lest it seem their deficit is due to the comparison being between a person and a party, Republicans’ deficit is -13 percentage points.

If Democrats are performing this poorly with Trump omnipresent before the public and high unfavorability, where will Democrats be when he is absent and fading from memory?

Right now, Democrats are leaderless as well as message-less. Joe Biden, their latest president, was forced from the ticket and is avoided by Democrat candidates. Kamala Harris, their latest nominee, is all but invisible and in the RealClearPolitics Average is supported by just 21.3% of Democrats in 2028 nomination polling. Tim Walz, their latest VP nominee, first withdrew from seeking reelection as Minnesota governor in the wake of scandal, then announced he was withdrawing from politics altogether.

Democrats need to get beyond their anti-Trump strategy, find a leader, establish a positive message, and create a positive record. To accomplish these, they need to win the White House and hope to recreate what Obama had in 2012: a positive message and a credible record to run on.

However, Democrats have just one election to do it: 2028. Because four years later, the presidential playing field that is already tilted against them slants even more severely. Absent a 2028 win, Democrats could be on the outside looking in for some time.