Are there any early frontrunners for the 2028 presidential election?

districts that are really up for grabs. It looks like Democrats have a real strong chance of winning pretty much all of the districts that are up for grabs. And it will give them a narrow lead in the House of Representatives, most likely. Senate's different. Senate still, though, looks like it could go with a couple breaks. It could go Democratic as well. So I'd say that that maybe is like 55% for the Republicans right now, but that's about it. going to be close. And it could be that the Democrats really have a kind of a wipeout like we saw with Republicans back in 2010. And we should note that historically, things are not on the side of the Republicans right now that throughout history, there are only two exceptions where the party that wins the White House also wins the following midterms two years later. So it takes extremely... unique political conditions for that trend to be reversed. We're talking with Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. When we get back, we will ask him, who is leading in the race for president on the Democratic and the Republican side? Because once we get through the midterms, all the focus nationally turns to who's the next president. And even though Trump joked about it at the correspondence dinner, it will not be Donald Trump. We're back after this check on WWL traffic. 655. Thanks for starting your day here on WW. Dave Cohen in for Tommy Tucker Carlson, along with Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Andy, we saw the president pull out a Trump 2028 hat and put it on during the correspondence dinner over the weekend. But then he did laugh. While he is selling those to try and make money, he is not selling the American public on the fact that he would be running for president in 2028. So that raises the question. Who will be running for president in 2028? Well, there's an old saying that what's the first thing a senator does when he wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says, good morning, Mr. President. So I think you've got a lot of people in the Senate and quite a few people in the House as well as governors, they're all lining up. So up here in New Hampshire, we get to hear about them pretty early because it still will have the first in the nation primary, despite what the Democratic Party says. But it will be... Things just got a little tense in the room. Okay, all right. We've had a whole bunch of them come up here. All right. Well, let's talk about the Democrats. Let's start there. Is there any polling? Have you done any polling or have you seen any polling to indicate who could be an early frontrunner for the Democrats? And it's really not too early to start talking about it. It's not too early to start talking about it. We just released the polls here in New Hampshire last week. And again, New Hampshire being first is always an indicator where things are likely to go. The top two people on the Democratic side really tied Alexandria KSCO Cortez from New York. He's a 22% among likely Democratic primary voters and Pete Buttigieg, former. Secretary of Transportation is at 21%. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as she's called, has been in the news quite a bit in advocating more for progressive candidates for Congress that have done quite well. Pete Buttigieg has been up here a lot. He came in second place back in 2024, up in the New Hampshire primary, or in 2020, excuse me, in the New Hampshire primary. And he's been up to New Hampshire quite a bit.

So it drops off pretty significantly from then. Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator has been up there several times, then Gavin Newsom, our old friend Bernie Sanders, and then down at 5% Kamala Harris. Below that, you get a bunch of people that nobody really knows. Is that an indication that Harris probably will not try again? I don't know about that. I think once people get the taste of power or almost being president, it's hard to stop them. I can remember Dan Quail running in 2000, even though he was quite unpopular after the Bush administration, they still want to run. All right, two minutes left. Let's look at the Republican side. Republican side, pretty interesting there. JD Vance had been leading by quite a bit. We measured this back in October. Last year, he was at 51%. He's down to 36% now. Marco Rubio is at 26%. Then we have old Rand Paul, who seems to have run in every presidential race since 2016. He's at 8%. Nikki Haley, who finished second to Trump here in 2024. Is at 8%. Ron DeSantis at 6. and Tulsi Gabbard at four. And I should say we put on the list, your old friend John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from Louisiana. He was up here visiting New Hampshire, just happened to be up here. He's at 2%. Two percent. He's at 2%. Still kind of unknown, but he's got a chance. He's certainly probably the most entertaining of them to listen to. And while these numbers are indicative of who may be able to raise money right now and start building support, they don't necessarily mean who will be the frontrunner come a year or 18 months from now. Not really. Although typically what you see is whoever the early frontrunner is in New Hampshire is most often won the primary of their party, or at least won the New Hampshire primary, and maybe not the primaries for their whole party. But it's a good early indication of... who's well-known enough to make a good run for it. All right. Well, you're well-known enough to us. I know we'll have you on again very soon as we get closer to the midterms and then as we start turning our focus almost entirely to the presidential election when it comes to national politics. Thanks for joining us here. Things never stopped, do they? No, they don't. Go enjoy that 55-degree morning, huh? All right, Dave. Take care of you, too. We'll talk to you soon. Andy Smith here on WWL. We're going to talk about this trend that people are buying fewer and fewer groceries after the news.