Why it’s not too early to start thinking about the US 2028 presidential election – seriously

Source: Radio New Zealand

Explainer – We know, we know. You’re so sick of hearing about American politics.

But while the 2028 presidential election is still a while off, plenty of people are already thinking about it. There’s already a lot of positioning and quiet campaigning going on as the US looks to what might be – possibly – its first non-Trump election in more than 10 years.

It’s less than 1000 days until a new US president is inaugurated on 20 January 2029.

As has been seen throughout the Donald Trump era, whoever is elected in Washington DC can have a big impact on life in Aotearoa, whether it’s the price of petrol or lucrative trade deals.

A former leader of the National Party and a prominent New Zealand historian took a look at the big issues likely to play out as America starts to make its first tentative steps beyond the Trump era – and whether or not that era is likely to end any time soon.

“What happens in America really matters,” said Todd Muller, the former Bay of Plenty MP who led the National Party in 2020, and has a long-standing interest in American politics.

“I don’t think the 2028 election will be ‘normal’ because these are not ‘normal’ times,” said Paul Taillon, a senior lecturer in US history at the University of Auckland.

Will 2028 be a continuation of the Trump era or a rebuttal of it? Here’s what we know at the moment.

Wait, isn’t the 2028 US election more than two years away? Settle down, mate.

Yes, the election won’t be held until 7 November 2028 – but because running for president is insanely expensive and America’s population of nearly 350 million is more than 60 times larger than New Zealand, the cycle is already starting as candidates visit key states, hit party meetings and seek out donors.

Because Donald Trump is technically unable to run again (more on that in a minute), hopeful successors on the Republican side like Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are jostling for power. On the Democratic side, many hopefuls recently attended the National Action Network meeting in New York City hoping to gather buzz.

The first candidates for president are likely to announce by the end of this year or early 2027, after November’s midterm elections. Most major candidates would need to declare by midyear in 2027 to have a chance of gathering enough money and support to make a run official.

A typical presidential campaign runs as long as two years – Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 was a serious outlier as she only had 108 days to campaign against Trump after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Billions of dollars are spent by the candidates, political parties, and a vast multiverse of donors, lobbyists and action committees.

US presidential elections are every four years, but because the 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election every two years and typically also about a third of the Senate, who serve seven-year terms, campaigning never really ends, Muller said.

“America really is the country of non-stop campaigning and is part of why intense partisanship is more hard-wired there than any other western democracy.”

The midterm elections on 3 November this year will see the House and 35 Senators up for election and determine who will control Congress for the rest of Trump’s term. Whatever happens then, we’ll see the next presidential race immediately leap into higher gear.

Trump has been hurting in the polls with the Iran war, and almost no US president has historically been able to avoid “lame duck” status – a lessening of their power and influence – in the final half of a second term.

“The midterm election this November is critical to the context of 2028,” Muller said.

“Currently the Republicans are being hammered for the cost of living and the Iran War. However if the Democrats win big in 2026 and take back control of both houses, they then are likely to be tarred with the ongoing economic challenges many Americans are feeling in their back pockets come 2028.”

Could Trump actually run for a third term?

There’s been plenty of chatter about that – former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has repeatedly claimed there is a “plan” for Trump to run for a third term.

This ignores powerful guardrails set up by the US Constitution – the 22nd Amendment was passed in 1951 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times in a row, and it decrees that nobody can be elected president more than twice. (Trump was elected to non-consecutive terms, although he has run three times.)

Nobody has ever really tested that amendment, Taillon notes.

“If Trump decides to test or defy that amendment he will likely trigger a constitutional crisis which will polarise the country even further,” Taillon said.

“This issue has been batted around the internet a fair bit and it seems that it would come down to the Supreme Court which Trump could choose to defy.”

Of course, biological facts are also a factor – Trump will be 82 in 2028, and would be nearly 87 years old by the time a hypothetical third term ended in January 2033.

So why should New Zealand be paying attention?

Tariffs, the war in Iran affecting fuel prices, inflation, defence policies and the less obvious drift of political polarisation – what happens in America affects us here whether or not we like it.

“What happens in America really matters, and Trump has forced every country to reassess its global relationships and reflect on how best to navigate heightened volatility,” Muller said.

“We do this well. I have a lot of time for our foreign affairs teams globally and our long-standing tradition of impressive foreign ministers. NZ tend to be good at relationships, adding practical thinking to gnarly issues of the day.”

Is 2028 likely to be a more ‘normal’ election?

Muller said “US politics is rarely normal as we would see it” in New Zealand. He attended both the Democrat and Republican party conventions in 2016, and has hosted a podcast on US politics since leaving Parliament.

“US elections are often highly partisan, brutally pointed and personal, underpinned by a ‘free speech anything goes’ type of campaigning.

“I expect 2028 will be a tough watch with the two parties going hammer and tong at each other,” he said, although noted that it wouldn’t be any fiercer than some other past US elections like the 1968 campaign overshadowed by Vietnam and mass protests or the controversial 2000 near-tie election which went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Taillon said “normal” left the field long ago for much of US politics.

“The Republican Party itself is not normal, nor can we even talk about it as ‘the’ Republican Party as it had been in the early 21st century, even as a conservative political party which had defined itself against New Deal modern liberalism. It has been taken over by a movement which has no regard for ‘normal’ politics.”

Taillon said Trump “has no regard for ‘normal’ political practice and has succeeded in disrupting just about every norm of political practice and good government as we had known it.”

Multiple states in the US have redrawn their congressional districts to favour one party or the other more, which could also end up in more court battles and disruption.

“There is good reason to think that Trump will not accept a vote which does not go his way, given his response to the 2020 election then and since,” Taillon said.

Throw in the potential for political violence – seen most recently again just this week with yet another apparent attempt on Trump’s life – and it’s clear 2028 is not going to be giving us chilled-out election vibes.

OK, but who’s likely to run in 2028?

Vance leads a lot of the very early polling and prediction markets, while Democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom is also ranking highly. Rubio, the Secretary of State, could be the first Hispanic president, while Vance, 44 in 2028, would be one of the youngest elected.

Vice presidents often run as the anointed successors and tend to lead early polls based on their name recognition alone, although they have a mixed track record for actually winning the presidency – in recent times, George H.W. Bush and Joe Biden ascended to the top office, while Al Gore and Kamala Harris fell short.

“Gavin Newsom for the Democrats and JD Vance and Marco Rubio for the Republicans are the frontrunners, which is important in a race which will be defined by profile and money,” Muller said.

“Both the Republicans and Democrats will raise and spend more than $5 billion NZD each so early strength is important.”

There are plenty of other candidates that could emerge – popular Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria ‘AOC’ Ocasio-Cortez is rising in some polls, as are other Democrats like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, or Kamala Harris could decide to run again.

Vance and Rubio tend to dominate Republican polls so far, but a dark horse could always emerge – few would have predicted Barack Obama to become president at this point in 2006, for instance.

Even unlikely candidates like Donald Trump Jr. or former Fox News host Tucker Carlson come up in some polls.

“You can never discount an out-of-the-box dark horse candidate coming through from either side,” Muller said.

Taillon said it’s “too early to tell” about 2028. In the past, early prominent names like Jeb Bush or Howard Dean have often faded fast once voting started.

“The primary process sorts out the candidates and there is a lot of time between now and the 2028 primary season.”

If Vance is elected “we might expect him to carry the torch,” Taillon said.

“But given how uniquely Trump has defined this government as a cult of personality, I don’t think it will necessarily be a straightforward matter of carrying on without him.”

Will Trumpism carry on past Trump’s term?

“The MAGA movement with its coalition of America first, anti-globalisation and free trade, religious activism, anti-immigration and anti-wokeness will continue for the foreseeable future,” Muller said.

“But the ‘Trumpism’ of the man will not have the same potency without him. His unique style will not be replicable by future Republican standard bearers, but his impact on the future of American right of politics has been as transformational as Ronald Reagan.”

A wide variety of factors led to the rise of Trump and many of those haven’t gone away, Taillon noted.

“The phenomena that is Trumpism has emerged out of concrete social/political circumstances and in a specific historical context, dating to the dislocations of the 1970s in the long term, the 1990s (and Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America), and the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis and President Barack Obama’s administration.”

Love or hate the man, Trump’s impact on America can’t be denied, Taillon agreed.

“Trump must rank as one of the top four most consequential presidents in US history, but not in a good way,” he said. “His legacy will continue after he departs from the political scene.”

“It will take some sort of period of ‘re-formation’ to reset US politics to something more functional than what it has now. And the Democratic Party must reinvent itself as an engine of change for that to happen.”

Is the long, polarised cycle of American elections starting to seep into NZ politics?

New Zealand’s own 7 November election this year was announced in January, meaning that the entire year is consumed by election politics.

Politicians are ultimately always campaigning in some sense, and Muller said that there’s little chance America’s current deep polarisation will end in 2028 – and in New Zealand, we’ll continue to get echoes of those same culture wars.

“Polarisation will continue and the disintegration of formal media channels and rapid reach of social and AI into all aspects of society will only exacerbate that trend,” Muller said.

“NZ is slightly less exposed because of our small population and institutions which reflect most political views. But we are not immune and looking back over decades all societal trends both good and bad, eventually wash up on our shores.

“NZ will never be like America in its day to day politics, but the issues, the language, the campaign tactics will invariably have its own Kiwi echo.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand