Do you realize what’s happening right now?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]All right, we are still years away from the 2028 election, but there is so much happening right now. I want to dig through what's happening on the Democratic and Republican sides. Many of you have written to me with considerations, with questions, with um uh raising aspects of what is developing on both the Democratic and the Republican side. I think it's a good idea to talk about it. both parties are publicly seemingly heading in one direction with who they're going to nominate, but then when you look at the polling, it looks different. And then when you look at the betting markets, it again looks different. So let's compare all of it. And one of the things that is already clear is that there seems to be a disconnect between what people are talking about, what the data is saying, and what the money is saying. All of which I believe matter. So if you look at the democratic side, if you follow political media, podcasts, Twitter, um the online spaces, you would think that the 2028 primary is basically Gavin Newsome versus Congresswoman Alexandria Casiocortez. That's the biggest conversation that is happening on most of those platforms just in terms of the sheer numbers. But then you look at the polling and when you look at the polling the situation all of a sudden starts to look a little bit different where you have Kla Harris far out ahead of Gavin Newsome with about 27% of the vote on average. Gavin Newsome at 19. uh AOS a booted edge at close to 11, AOC at 8, Congressman Josh Shapiro just under seven, and Senator Mark Kelly at five.

[00:01:54]So the online conversation is already looking very different than the polling conversation. But then you look at the betting markets and for example on Kelshi, it does more closely reflect what is happening in the public conversation. Gavin Newsome is leading the betting markets with 26%. Then it's AOC at 11, John Oaf at 7%, which is fascinating because he's not even polling anywhere uh in the lead in any of the polls. Kla Harris is is there Kla Harris is there uh with under 6% and then you've got Boot Edge Edge, Shapiro, Mark Kelly. Okay, so that's already a very different picture than the public picture. So we have a conversation that is being driven to a great degree by media narratives and some people are kind of wish casting their ideology onto the primary and then there's also the question of who people want to talk about but the polling is still picking up name recognition where Kla Harris uh certainly has an advantage there.

[00:02:56]Presumed institutional support default voters Harris is not the exciting pick and a lot of the conversation online has nothing to do with Kla Harris. I've said, by the way, I don't think she is the ideal nominee. I don't I don't even think she should run. Now, I don't think she should run is different than she should be blocked from running. There should be a robust primary. If she determines she wants to run, she should be allowed to run and voters should should have their say, but she's the one currently quietly leading in the polling. And uh that's very different from the conversation. We then have the Republican side. Now, in the Republican side, the media narrative has been shaping up as JD Vance is the default.

[00:03:37]And then you've got Marco Rubio. That's the serious conversation. Pundits are debating it. Even pundits are debating it. I still don't know what those are, but I hear that word all the time, pundits. And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're pundits. They're all debating it. Um, the conversation around Trump has become which direction is Trump going to go in terms of an endorsement? Trump seems uncertain and and lacking confidence. You look at the polling for the Republican primary and you've got Vance way ahead with 44. But then in second place, it's Donald Trump Jr., someone who's getting zero attention in a lot of the discussion spaces, is actually polling second, disgustingly. Then it's Rubio at 13 and a half. Ronda Santis is further back at seven. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at four.

[00:04:27]Nikki Haley at 3.3. So that's the polling for Republicans. And then the numbers again look very different if you look at the betting markets where on Kshi it is Vance in first at 36, Marco Rubio in second at a much closer 27. Then it's Tucker, Ronda Santis at four, and then beyond that is Donald J.

[00:04:52]Trump Jr. at 3%. Hilariously, there's 2.6%. 6% of the money behind the current president, Donald J. Trump. So, three different pictures and you see that Donald Trump Jr. figures significantly in one space uh but not in another. Um so, let's kind of dive into what the dynamics are of this entire thing. First of all, would it be unusual that the Twitter energy, the Reddit energy, the feel among the spaces of those who are very online would be different than the polling? No, that's actually very common. And in fact, back in 2020, I still remember difficult conversations with the audience where I said as a Bernie supporter to my audience, we shouldn't uh uh ignore the fact that the polling doesn't suggest Bernie is as strong as some of the online spaces think. And I told my audience, while I am a Bernie supporter, I also try to deliver to you what I believe to be the truth. And I think that the online spaces are significantly underounting support for Joe Biden. Not because I was happy about that, but because I thought it was the truth. And indeed, it did shape up to be uh one of those scenarios. So I think at this point the most important takeaways are number one there are so many people sampling especially on the Democratic side sampling sort of what are the winds feeling like and some of them are sampling it by showing up in early primary states. Some of them are sampling it by writing a book and seeing what the sort of vibe is when they do book events and interviews. Others are doing media tours. There's a lot of different sampling going on and I think that accurately there is the belief among some that there may not be room for all of them in the Democratic primary. Now what do I mean for that?

[00:06:50]David, are you saying people should not run? No, no, no, no, no. Everybody who wants to run should run. The most the the strongest candidate will come out of defeating other contenders. So that's not about that. But I think there's a practical reality in which if you look at hypothetical candidates uh Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro, JB Pritsker, Wes Moore, they are all similarly placed on the political spectrum. And so they must be thinking if we each immediately join and get a few percentage points, are we competing for the same voters? and does that hurt all of us or does that put us in a position to win? I think these are the sort of questions that are coming up. Again, I'm as as a Democratic primary voter who has a personal interest and a professional interest in this primary. I have no interest in keeping anybody out. I don't want the DNC putting their thumb on the scale. I don't want gaslighting with respect to someone should not run because they can't win. There's a lot of people I don't think can win a primary or a general election, but if they determine that they want to run, we are all better off saying, "Let the let the voters have their say." Absolutely. Now, I will also mention I wouldn't be against reorganizing the Democratic primary so that there is this less of this, well, let's vote in our state based on who won a previous state.

[00:08:22]I would really rather just know who the voters want. And sometimes what you have when the primaries are staggered, as is always the case, is that the later primary results are impacted by what earlier voters have already decided. And if people go, well, the person I actually think is best lost the first two primaries, maybe I'll vote differently in this third primary. Is it really representative of what voters want? Maybe not. Okay, so on the Democratic side, robust primary, get everybody in. I think that's great. On the Republican side, the most interesting aspect of this is that two years ago, probably a year ago, certainly four years ago, there was this belief that when it's all said and done for Trump, he will be in a position to anoint a parent. And before it was clear that he and Mike Pence were no longer going to be on speaking terms, the assumption was, well, it'll be Trump saying now it's time for Mike Pence to be the the nominee. we we know that's not going to happen. And then when it became JD Vance, then the assumption was, well, Trump will want to and will be in a position to say it's JD's turn.

[00:09:31]But there are two really critical things taking place already that make me doubt whether that's going to take place.

[00:09:38]Number one is that it's not clear Trump actually wants it to be JD Vance. We, as I mentioned earlier, there's this ambivalence with uh Marco Rubio. Who should I pick? What what's best uh for me to do? Trump always wants to pick a winner. And so at the end of the day, Trump is going to be highly impacted by who he is told is more likely to win because he wants to pick a winner. But the second part, and this is maybe the most interesting, is that Trump is already so diminished in terms of his influence that I don't know that he is in a position to tell the Republicans who the nominee should be. And he may not be able to anoint anybody. And so, especially if Democrats win the House in November, which I believe they will, and especially if Democrats win it by a lot, and embroil Trump in investigations and oversight and maybe an impeachment in the last two years of his presidency, Trump's influence may be so diminished by the time the Republican primary starts that he may have the desire, but not the power and influence to actually choose his successor. I want to hear from you. uh who are you uh looking at?

[00:10:45]And then I I guess I wasn't going to do this, but I'm I I think it would be a disservice if I didn't. There are already people who who say that they are on the left. Now, whether they are really in what I identify as the political left or whether they are sort of something else is a different question, but there are people who claim to be on the left already uh ruling out a whole bunch of candidates. I will never vote for ex candidate. I think that that's pretty dumb. And I'll give you an example. I don't think Kla Harris should run. I think that it's time for a battle between other candidates in the primary without the uh presence of Kla Harris based on how the last election went. That's my opinion. Should she be prevented from running? No. She should be allowed to run. and I would not vote for her in the primary most likely based on some of the other people that might run. However, it would be really weird if I said today, "If Kamla is the nominee, I will stay home." That'd be pretty stupid of me to say. And a lot of you would be right to call me out. And you would write to me and you would say, "Well, David, are you saying that if it's Kamla versus Don Jr. in 28, you'll stay home? Are you saying that if it's Kamla versus JD Vance or Tucker Carlson or whatever, you'll stay home? Of course not. I'm always going to vote for the person that I think is the best option or the least bad option. And so it would be very strange today for me to declare if it's Kamla, I will never vote for her. There are already some people on the left doing that stuff. I don't think it helps anybody other than whoever is the eventual Republican nominee. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment.

[00:12:30]Send me an email [email protected].

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