The midterm elections are still four months away, but many on the left already have their sights set on 2028 – and there are already some major developments in the race to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Harris’ High Hopes
Megyn has been rooting for former Vice President – and three-time failed presidential hopeful – Kamala Harris to give it another go, and it sounds like she just might get her wish if the latest New York Magazine headline is any indication.
In the piece titled “Like It or Not, Kamala Harris Is the Front-runner,” writer David Freedlander spoke to friends and allies of Harris who claim she is ready to go.
That’s right: Despite cackling through a billion dollars in 107 days only to lose every swing state to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, Democrats are reportedly seriously considering giving Harris another chance.
“She walks in as the front-runner. It is fairly obvious she is followed wherever she goes… And I don’t want to upset any narratives that any of the other candidates are pushing, but she comes in with 99 percent name ID and everyone else is going to have to raise money and buy it,” one former aide told the outlet.
History suggests that the more America saw of Kamala Harris, the less they liked her as a presidential candidate. Yet Harris’ advisers have seemingly reached the opposite conclusion, determining that the former VP just didn’t have enough time to show who she really was.
Now, Harris is in the damage control phase of her ramp-up, meeting with members of the far-left, anti-Israel wing of her party and even reportedly reaching out to New York’s socialist Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
New York Mag spoke to a supporter who recently spoke to Harris and came away from the conversation “convinced” she is going to run again. “She is looking for where the wave is going and is determined to ride it… Her mindset is that ‘I should have won, and I am going to do it my way because my way would have won, and it was all these consultants that were telling me to take this position or that position, and it was their fault,'” the person claimed.
To the point about name recognition, Harris currently has a double-digit lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average for the Democratic primary. She is at 28 percent, followed by outgoing California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 16.5 percent, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at 11 percent, and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Coretz (D-NY) at 8.5 percent.
But not everyone is excited about Kamala. The article ends with Democratic strategist Alex Hoffman laying out his ideal scenario. “I hope she runs… because then she will lose and we will never have to hear from her again. She will never win an election at a national scale. Never,” he declared.
AOC on the Rise?
While Harris may be enjoying an early polling advantage, she is not the only Dem laying the groundwork for a 2028 run. AOC is sitting in fourth place at the moment and is already getting praise from the newly crowned kingmaker of the far-left.
Mayor Mamdani landed a high-profile interview on The New York Times’ The Interview podcast with Lulu Garcia-Navarro that dropped over the weekend, and he didn’t hold back on whether the congresswoman would make a good commander-in-chief.
“We all have to take a step back and appreciate what it is that she means to so many across this country, and the reason for it is the work that she has done,” Mamdani said.
When Garcia-Navarro asked if he thought “she would make a good president,” he responded, “I think she’d make a good anything.”
If there is one thing that seems increasingly clear about the three-term congresswoman, it is that she is not afraid to pander to Democrat voters. Speaking to a predominantly black audience in Memphis on Friday while campaigning for House candidate Justin Pearson, AOC invoked her best – and most inauthentic – preacher accent.
“Brothers and sisters, we cannot afford to leave Tennessee behind. We cannot afford to leave Kentucky behind, Alabama behind, Mississippi behind, Georgia behind, South Carolina behind,” Ocasio-Cortez bellowed. “Sister Presley and I were in Montgomery, Alabama, and one of the things that we said was that it is time for the North to roll up to the South. We will not be chased out of places anymore, brothers and sisters. It is going to take all of us together, rejecting the separation, for us to organize and speak life into one another. Because we will, we will see the day where we will turn the crooked path straight.”
The schtick may already be resonating with some faction of Dems because Axios’ Alex Thompson was out with a piece Sunday about how AOC is channeling former President Barack Obama’s “‘hope and change’ message.” He pointed out that 2026 AOC sounds a lot like 2007 Obama.
When Ocasio-Cortez stumped for far-left Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed over the weekend, she had the following to say about the so-called “status quo”:
AOC: Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again? A playbook that says in order to win we need to show deference to Trump by thanking his same ICE agency that has shot Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and Johann Sebastian Duran Guerrero. A playbook that says in order to win we must be defenders of the same status quo that is drowning us and tells us the aspiration to change our government and the ambition to even try is foolish. No, it’s not foolish, Michigan. It is the responsible and right thing to do.
Sound familiar? Here was then-Senator Obama in Iowa back in 2007:
OBAMA: The same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do in this election… That’s why I’m asking you to stop settling for what the civics say we have to extend. In this election, in this moment, let us reach for what we know is possible: A nation healed, a world repaired, an America that believes again.
Thompson reported AOC also took a page from Obama’s “hope and change” playbook while campaigning in Montana in May, telling voters to “ask your skeptical neighbor to believe. It’s the only thing that we have. Our hope is the only thing that creates change, and that’s why so many people try to talk us out of it.”
Crucial to the congresswoman’s success, Thompson noted, will be whether or not she can “broaden Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ progressive coalition.” Leftist darlings like Mamdani, El-Sayed, and others seem to think so. Time will tell if the voting public feels the same way.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,363 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.