CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten broke down Monday how the Democratic Party has no “heir apparent” for the next presidential primary season for the first time since the 1990’s.
There is currently no clear leader or preferred candidate in the early stages to potentially win the nomination in the 2028 presidential primary for the first time since 1992, Enten said. Former Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden became the party’s clear leaders throughout the 21st century by earning a favorability rating of over 25% in national polls.
“There’s no heir apparent,” Enten said. “You know, and we can see this perhaps best by, let’s [take] a look at the early poll leader for 2028. There isn’t one, there’s no early favorite, there’s no clear favorite and that is really unusual because the bottomline is, when you have no incumbent Democratic president following this year, we’ve looked back at similar situations; back in 2017, Joe Biden was the clear heir apparent, in 2005 and then in 2013 heading into the 2016 campaign, Hillary was up in the national polls. It was pretty clear she was the heir apparent. How about Al Gore going into the 2000 campaign or ’04, again, the clear heir apparent. You have to go all the way back … to the 1992 campaign with this giant question mark over here … where there was no clear heir apparent.”
“This is going to be the first cycle it seems since going back all the way to the late ’80’s, early 1990’s in which there is no clear early frontrunner for the next Democratic nomination,” Enten continued.
The lack of a clear leader in the Democratic Party could be “good news” for the party given that Clinton lost the nomination to former President Barack Obama in the 2008 primary season, Enten and CNN’s John Berman explained. After having no clear leader in 1992, Democrats also won that year’s election when former President Bill Clinton defeated incumbent President George HW Bush.
The Democrats are currently in “bad shape,” Eaten said as he referenced Biden’s approval rating which stands at 40% nationally — just 3 points higher than former President Jimmy Carter’s favorability in 1980. The party is set to hold no majority in Congress or the White House in 2025, which has only occurred 5 times in the last 90 years.
“Even after 2016, you go into 2017 and Democrats control no levers of the Congress, Democrats have no real heir apparent really except for Biden,” Enten continued. “But Barack Obama at least had an approval rating nationwide of 53%. Look at where Joe Biden’s is, 40%. You have to go all the way back to 1980 … to find a departing incumbent Democratic president to have an approval rating as low as Joe Biden’s is right now. When you make the comparison to Jimmy Carter on popularity, you know that you’re in bad shape.”
President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris early Wednesday by securing 312 electoral votes and by becoming the first Republican nominee to win the popular vote since 2004. Republicans also gained control of the Senate, with 53 seats, and appears slated to keep control of the House of Representatives.
Trump made major inroads with black and Latino men, along with blue collar workers, who exited the Democratic Party in droves.
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