The polling guru says the rising Democratic star is a safe bet.
Photo illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Polling analyst Nate Silver has revealed his top pick for the 2028 Democratic presidential race.
Speaking at a political conference Saturday, Silver said Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff was his number one choice to lead Democrats into the next presidential election, arguing that the 39-year-old rising star had the rare ability to bridge the party’s increasingly bitter divide between progressives and centrists.
Jon Ossoff, 39, eked out an 18-point Election Day victory in Georgia, a state Donald Trump will win in 2024.
Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images
“He really is a number one choice,” Silver said at the Crooked Con political conference in Washington, DC.
“He won by 16, 17, 18 points or something like that. He seems to be the ‘compromise candidate’ between the progressive factions and the more centrist factions of the party. And he seems very talented.”
Ossoff also has another asset going for him in the race for the presidential nomination, Silver suggested: his looks.
Nate Silver and his Still Counting co-hosts at Crooked Con in Washington DC.
“Does he look in great shape or something?” he joked, referring to the online trend of maximizing one’s physical attractiveness.
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Ossoff became one of the party’s rising stars after winning re-election against Trump-backed candidate Mike Collins.
He gained national attention earlier this year when he accused Trump of being more concerned about jet-setting around the world with White House aide Natalie Harp than governing.
Donald Trump aide Natalie Harp beams as the president extends his hand to her on stage at a recent rally in Nebraska.
The Georgia senator is also quickly becoming one of the thirstiest politicians on the internet, with Instagram and TikTok filled with footage of the former documentarian at rallies and campaign events.
“I’m so happy that I get to experience a hot president in my lifetime,” a Florida-based content creator recently mused in a video comparing Ossoff to Fitzgerald Grant, the fictional president played by Tony Goldwyn in the political drama. Scandal.
Senator Jon Ossoff is favored to be the Democratic nominee in prediction markets like Kalshi.
But Silver also had a bigger, ominous prediction about what could happen to Republicans in 2028.
He said that if Democrats can replicate the electoral earthquake that hit the Republican Party on Tuesday, a 60-seat Senate majority “would be on the table.”
Tuesday’s midterm elections were an extraordinary rebuke to Trump and his party, with Democrats flipping the House and seven Senate seats.
Democrats now hold the majority, paving the way for congressional investigations into Trump and his allies, as well as two years of lame duck status for the president.
“This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country,” said outgoing Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
But Silver sounded a cautionary note about how Democrats should use their new power.
He argued that lawmakers should reassert Congress’ authority over the executive branch, pointing to Congress’s ability to override a presidential veto — a power rarely used successfully in recent decades — as a potential tool to reclaim its constitutional authority.
But he questions whether Democrats should rush to save Trump from the consequences of his own decisions.
“There are some things like exercising more congressional authority over tariffs and more powers and things like that would probably be good for democracy with a lowercase ‘D,’ right? “, he said.
“But on the other hand, if Trump continues to make missteps and screw up … his successor’s (chances), then why would you want to save him from himself?”
Silver chose Ossoff as his top pick to win the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries during a segment at Crooked Con with his We always count podcast colleagues Clare Malone and Galen Duke.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. arrives at the memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, in New York, U.S., September 11, 2026. Adam Gray/Pool via REUTERS
Adam Gray/Pool via REUTERS
Malone’s first choice to win the nomination was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Duke chose Pete Buttigieg.
Ossoff was also the big winner in the Crooked Con poll for Democratic candidate in 2028. Attendees voted and the results were announced at the end of the summit. Ossoff received 38.4 percent of the vote, Ocasio-Cortez 16.6 percent and Buttigieg 13.9 percent.
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