MORNING GLORY: The GOP’s choice in 2028 — more of MAGA or a reversion to the mean?

Since President Trump’s triumphant return in November 2024—a victory in which Trump won all seven swing states and the popular vote—Democrats have reacted by shifting hard left, electing a radical mayor in New York City, trying to move purple Virginia to the far left with a wild, gerrymandered Congressional map (which was struck down as unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court) and nominating the radical (and deeply problematic) Graham Platner on Tuesday. Maine will face moderate and widely acclaimed Senator Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee.

Radical candidates are also expected to emerge as the party’s Senate candidates in Michigan and Minnesota. It seems inevitable that the “Democratic Socialists of America” ​​will take over the shattered glass of the Democratic Party in a hostile manner.

With Democrats at best in a civil war between socialists and far-left liberals, which direction will the post-President Trump GOP turn?

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The party leader and front-runner for the 2028 nominee should be thought to be Vice President J.D. Vance, but the Veeps are not accepting the nomination except in the extraordinary circumstances Democrats face when Vice President Harris is awarded the nomination in 2024 when President Joe Biden’s physical and mental disabilities become too obvious to ignore.

Looking back to 1988, we see Vice President George HW Bush having to fight Senator Robert Dole for the GOP nomination in 1988. Four years ago, former Vice President Walters Mondale had to face a challenge from Senator Gary Hart. Not only did recently incumbent Vice President Al Gore receive the nomination after his loyal service as President Bill Clinton’s No. 2 man, he had to face and defeat Senator Bill Bradley to receive the Democratic nomination in 2000.

The rule, then, is that Vice Presidents must compete in primaries to win their party’s presidential nomination, and the exception to that rule is Kamala Harris. See how it turned out. When primaries are contested, parties become stronger.

So even if Vice President Vance seeks the office President Trump holds, he must expect to face a challenge in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond. Although President Trump is expected to confirm his hand-picked 2027 debate No. 2 (and there should be many), and the 2028 caucuses and primaries are expected to be raucous as the “era of Trump” comes to an end.

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President Trump and his “Make America Great Again” message have dominated the Republican Party since the summer of 2015, when Trump methodically defeated all of his Republican opponents, one by one, in a crowded field. Trump has brushed aside all rivals within the GOP in 2024, choosing not to even appear on debate stages with them.

There will not be such a dominant figure in the Republican race in 2028. Most GOP observers expect at least four candidates not named Vance: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is gearing up for a runoff. Popular incumbent Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia and former governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin are widely rumored to be preparing their campaigns. Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during President Trump’s first term, is also expected to join the field, bringing with him his career as a graduate of West Point and Harvard Law School and his years in Congress as a member from Kansas.

This is just one of the four challenging Vance; There are also talented and ambitious senators like Ted Cruz of Texas and David McCormick of Pennsylvania. Suddenly we have seven very qualified candidates debating the future of the country, and that’s not including members of the President’s cabinet who have run before and who might run again: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

President Trump could support Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, or anyone else and throw his significant political weight behind him. No one knows, and it is highly doubtful that the president himself knows. He has said several times that the Vance-Rubio ticket would be a tough one, and it will be.

What is not “inevitable”. GOP primary voters don’t have to actually start voting until January 2028. Will they want a “return to the mean” of GOP politics and issues? Will they want a candidate who can endorse every aspect of what President Trump has done, or a candidate who picks from the Trump record?

It will certainly be an opening night for President Trump when the GOP convention meets in President Trump’s designated city. He will need the energy of whoever the nominee is, as there are millions of voters who voted for Trump three times and wish the Constitution did not prohibit a fourth chance to vote for him.

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But parties are a permanent feature of American political life. They evolve and change, and the GOP of 2028 will be radically different from those of 2000, 2012, and even 2024. His constituents may want changes in style, content, or both. As Democrats increasingly distance themselves from the left end of the American political spectrum with anti-American, anti-free market radicals, Republicans may collectively decide to move toward the rhetoric and style of the broad middle of the American temperament and more traditionally conservative political positions.

The muffled sound you hear is the sound of organizing the GOP presidential campaigns. We see the obvious positioning among Democrats, from Kamala Harris to Congressman Ro Khanna to Senator Chris Murphy. They can afford to be open and present.

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Now that it is President Trump’s party, Republicans need to be much more cautious in their first steps. But as he nears the end of his second term, Republican officeholders from the Senate to city councils have a hand in determining the winner in 2028. The GOP’s matches won’t start until after the World Cup, and likely until December of this year.

But they will start before the end of the year, and this will be the most interesting first season since 2016, which was an upheaval, a political earthquake that changed American politics for a dozen years. Maybe Republicans will be in a mood to seek the middle ground. Maybe.

Hugh Hewitt, Fox News contributor and “The Hugh Hewitt Show” weekday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh takes Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates nationwide and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest of Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier on weekdays at 6 p.m. ET A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he started his eponymous radio show in Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on all major national news television networks, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for all major American newspapers, and authored a dozen books. He has moderated multiple Republican candidate debates, most recently the 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in 2015-16. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians Today Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush.

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