With just a few weeks left until the midterm elections, more attention is being pulled to the next presidential election. While much could change between now and November 2028, a new poll revealed who the main contenders are right now.
This Focaldata-Financial Times poll was conducted between Oct. 2 and Oct. 5, with a sample size of 2,553 U.S. adults. It included 36% registered Democrats, 36% registered Republicans and 24% independents.
On the Democratic side, former Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the frontrunner out of several potential candidates with 32%. On the Republican side, current Vice President JD Vance was the frontrunner with 38%.
Harris – who replaced former President Joe Biden when he dropped out of the 2024 race and lost to current President Donald Trump – has come in as the Democratic frontrunner in previous polls. Vance also regularly stays at the top of the GOP pack of 2028 presidential hopefuls in polls.
Following Harris, the second most popular answer from Focaldata-Financial Times respondents regarding who the Democratic candidate should be was “unsure” at (16%). California Gov. Gavin Newsom came in third with 13%, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) came in fourth with 10%, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg came in fifth with 9%, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) came in fourth with 7%, Mark Kelly came in fifth with 5%, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro came in sixth with 4% and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear came in seventh with 2%.
“No vote” beat out Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rahm Emmanuel, who previously served as mayor of Chicago and former President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed Vance in a distant second with 20% and “unsure” took third place on the GOP side with 13%. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had 9%; the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., had 8%; Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had 5%, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had 2%, right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson had 2% and “would not vote” beat out businessman Vivek Ramaswamy at 1%.
Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket also showed Vance as the clear frontrunner among the potential GOP 2028 presidential candidates as of Wednesday. For the Democrats, things weren’t as clear – Kalshi showed Ossoff in the lead, but with just 15% and Polymarket showed AOC in the lead with 18%. As for the overall 2028 election winner, Both Kalshi and Polymarket were predicting a win for Vance, though Kalshi showed Newsom in second place and Polymarket had AOC in second place.
