2028 Election Prediction: Gavin Newsom vs JD Vance

With all the craziness going on with national politics (check this article for more detail on unprecedented mid-decade redistricting) and the 2025 off-year election cycle having just passed us by (shameless self-promo but you can read more about that here), I’ve been a little more quiet about the upcoming 2026 and 2028 election cycles than usual recently. In particular, it’s been a while since I’ve revisited the origins of this page: hypothetical presidential election predictions. It’s (crazily) been over six months since I last published a 2028 election prediction between two specific candidates, and throughout that time period, a lot has changed. While the general pool of likely high-profile candidates on both the Democratic and Republican sides remains mostly unchanged, we’ve received a lot more clarity on the individuals taking genuine steps to mount 2028 presidential campaigns.

Most notably for this article, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who I ranked sixth out of eleven total candidates in my article assessing candidate quality of potential Democratic nominees earlier this year, has emerged as one of the faces of the Democratic Party throughout 2025. Newsom has taken a hardline stance in opposition to the actions of Republican President Donald Trump, echoing the president’s uncanny political activity from the Democratic perspective, with the prime example being his heralding and successful passage of Proposition 50, a temporary measure that allowed California to redraw its congressional map to add five Democratic seats in response to an effort in Texas that added five Republican seats. This “fight fire with fire” approach has cemented Newsom’s standing as a potential 2028 candidate, with him coming second in a recent YouGov Democratic Primary Poll, and has made it all but certain in my own mind that he will ultimately run for the nomination.

For my newer readers, I’ve made it quite clear in previous election predictions that I strongly expect current Vice President JD Vance to be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2028, and nothing in recent months has indicated otherwise to me. As candidates, I see both Newsom and Vance as average to slightly above average (though Newsom may have a couple new things going for him that I’ll discuss later), so this prediction is pretty closely reflective of what I currently see the national environment to be. With all that being said, let’s take a look at the map.

States are classified as safe (10% or greater margin of victory), likely (5-10%), lean (1-5%), and tilt (less than 1%). Made using the YAPms political mapping tool.

As can be seen above, I currently have Gavin Newsom defeating JD Vance in a head-to-head 2028 electoral matchup by the absolute skin of his teeth. It’s important to note that were I writing this article just over a week ago, I likely would have had Vance coming out on top. As candidates, I actually see Vance as Newsom’s superior, albeit by a very slight margin that draws heavily down to geographic origins (as a California native who no longer lives in California, I can tell you firsthand that California gets a pretty bad rep elsewhere throughout the country). However, the 2025 elections, which delivered unprecedented Democratic victories across the board, established that the national environment has shifted heavily away from Republicans, so I may also be being too conservative with my predictions here. For now, I settled on a narrow Newsom win powered by the rust belt swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, for a number of key reasons that I’ll discuss in further detail below.

Where Newsom Does Well

Newsom is somewhat difficult to pin down as a candidate, as unlike many other potential 2028 Democratic nominees, I wouldn’t say that his platform provides a strong geographic advantage or disadvantage for any particular region of the country. As a candidate, he grades out at just about average for all the crucial “core seven” swing states (Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania). His strengths in a hypothetical 2028 election prediction will therefore reflect those of the Democratic Party as a whole. As such, much of Newsom’s gains will come from suburban voters, who have rapidly shifted Democratic throughout the past decade, allowing him to comfortably win Georgia despite Donald Trump having won it in 2024. These shifts will also allow him to perform well in Nevada and North Carolina, which both have large suburban populations, though I still see him falling just short in both states. Newsom’s biggest suburban boost, however, will come in Arizona due to his individual strength in the region. Most Democratic candidates of Newsom’s overall strength would lose Arizona by over a percentage point, due to Trump having won it by a colossal 5.5% in 2024. However, the growing and Democratic-trending suburbs of Phoenix (Arizona’s largest city by population) contain a significant diaspora of Californian migrants that would be particularly favorable to Newsom. Coupled with his strong anti-Trump platform, I believe that these factors would be just enough to win him the state, albeit by a very narrow margin. Newsom’s performance in the rust belt swing states would be average for a Democrat as far as I’m concerned, where his gains in the suburbs of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania would be offset by lack of appeal to working class and rural voting groups that make up significant portions of their populations. However, due to a national environment that favors Democrats, I’d give the generic 2028 Democratic candidate, and therefore, Newsom, the slight edge in the rust belt, serving as just enough to win him the election overall.

Where Vance Does Well

I don’t really have a ton to say about JD Vance as a candidate, as I expect 2028 voters to see him as a reflection of President Donald Trump. Due to his less outlandish tendencies and relatively weak public face, I expect him to struggle with rural turnout and do slightly better with suburban voters compared to Trump, but aside from that, his strengths will reflect those of the current president. First and foremost of these strengths is with minority voters, who have rapidly trended Republican ever since Trump was first elected in 2016. In particular, Hispanic voters, with whom I believe Vance will have strong appeal, will keep him competitive in Arizona while allowing him to win both Nevada and North Carolina. I also believe that he’ll continue the trend of Republicans consolidating rural support, an issue the party struggled with prior to the Trump era. However, what loses JD Vance this electoral matchup to me is his lack of populist appeal compared to the current president. Populist voters, who tend to come from working class backgrounds and comprise a significant portion of the rust belt voting base, respond well to political outsiders and outlandish candidates, neither of which would typically be used to describe Vance. Where Trump was able to turn these voters out for the Republican Party in historic levels, Vance will likely fail to do so, and without their support to push him over the edge, whatever gains he may experience in suburban areas will be more than negated by his losses amongst populists, ultimately handing Gavin Newsom the election in this hypothetical 2028 matchup.