Pollster Nate Silver is already predicting a comeback from Democrats in 2028, pointing to “hidden good news” for the party in this year’s election results despite President-elect Donald Trump’s win.
Even in states that Vice President Kamala Harris lost, like Arizona, others Democrats, like Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, succeeded, potentially pointing the way to a revival. In a newsletter blast on Tuesday, Silver compared Trump’s reelection to that of former President George Bush in 2004.
“Like Bush, Trump won thanks partly to a surge of votes from Latino and Asian American voters. Like Bush, he’ll win the popular vote — probably by a margin of around 1.4 percentage points once all votes are counted,” Silver wrote.
Bush’s second win was rock bottom for Democrats and forced the party to reflect and rebuild, Silver explained. The result was President Barack Obama, whose politics went onto define the Democratic Party for years to come.
The Democratic Party of today seems to be in a similar position since Nov. 5. Rather than dwelling on Trump’s existential threat to democracy as they did after his win in 2016, the party is trying to figure out where they went wrong and where they go next.
Though the GOP holds political momentum now, Silver predicts President-elect Trump, like Bush, will have a “challenging second term,” which will lead to a GOP loss in 2028. He pointed to some of Bush’s biggest failures, including the failure to reform social security, his response to Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.
Silver added that most incumbent parties are “unpopular” and tend to lose elections anyways.
This presents an opportunity for Democrats to regain popularity, particularly in swing states in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin, Silver wrote.
Despite his rather optimistic outlook, Silver clarified that Trump’s second term won’t be a “happy time for Democrats,” pointing to the president-elect’s 6-3 Supreme Court majority and “unchecked power.”
“But electorally speaking, these are the seeds out of which comebacks are made, and there’s a good chance that Trump is another octogenarian who overreads his mandate and overreaches in all sorts of ways,” Silver wrote.
“What normally happens is the losing party rebounds — so there’s always the next cycle for Democrats to look forward to,” he concluded.
