2028 Poll Crowns Two New Frontrunners: Marco Rubio and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

A newly released poll shows two unexpected favorites leading their parties for the 2028 presidential nomination: Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the Republicans and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the Democrats.The poll was conducted by AtlasIntel, which was named the most accurate of the 2024 election by survey veteran Nate Silver. The poll of more than 2,000 American adults shows a striking shift in the GOP landscape. A plurality of Republican respondents (45.4 percent) now identify Mr. Rubio as their preferred choice for the 2028 nomination. Vice President JD Vance, who has long been considered the presumptive heir to the MAGA base, trails in second place at 29.6 percent, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 11.2 percent.However, the Rubio-friendly survey may be an outlier. Previous national polling, including AtlasIntel’s own data from last December, consistently showed Mr. Vance holding a commanding lead over Mr. Rubio.Regardless of the polling discrepancies, the idea of a Rubio-Vance alignment is already generating buzz. On Monday, President Trump teased a crowd assembled at the White House, asking, “Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?” before musing that the pairing sounded “like a good ticket.”“By the way, I do believe that’s a dream team. But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance!” Mr. Trump joked.Political commentator Mark Halperin recently offered a different perspective, floating the idea that Mr. Vance might skip the 2028 race entirely.“I will say that in the next two years, as people in the party and the media are comparing Rubio and Vance side-by-side, I don’t think Vance can win them, win the performance competition,” Mr. Halperin said on his podcast. “I may be wrong, but I just think Rubio has improved enough and the perceptions are such that Vance is going to have a hard time of people looking at him in a press conference, in an interview on the stump, whether he drops his nasty tweet persona or not. I think he’s going to have a hard time winning that,” he said.“So if Vance chooses not to run, and I think that’s a possibility, probably because of his kids, I think Rubio will be in extremely strong position,” Mr. Halperin continued. “I think he’ll have the support of the president, of Vance, his friend, and I think he’ll be pretty close to a lock for the nomination. If Vance runs, I think they’ll run together. I think they’ll be a ticket, and they may even announce as a ticket from the beginning of the campaign, potentially, and raise $2 billion before the New Hampshire primary.”On the Democratic side, the AtlasIntel poll marks the first time Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has surged to first place in a 2028 primary survey. The New York progressive captured 26 percent of the vote, edging out former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (22.4 percent), California Governor Gavin Newsom (21.2 percent), and former Vice President Kamala Harris (12.9 percent).But other polls have shown other favorites. A recent Harvard/Harris poll and current prediction markets consistently show higher-profile figures like Mr. Newsom and Ms. Harris in the lead.Still, the new poll adds fuel to the speculation surrounding Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. The liberal firebrand recently addressed her future in a conversation with former Obama advisor David Axelrod, pushing back on the idea of calculating her next political move.“My ambition is to change this country,” she said. “Presidents come and go. Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go. But single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever; workers’ rights are forever; women’s rights; all of that, and so anyways … to a finer point to your question is that when you aren’t attached, right, when you haven’t been like fantasizing about being this or that since the time you were seven years old, um, it is tremendously liberating.”

2028 Poll Crowns Two New Frontrunners: Marco Rubio and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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