2028 Election Prediction: Kamala Harris vs JD Vance

For my viewers that have been keeping up with the now renewed ever-present content of this website, you will, by this point, be aware that the 2028 presidential election cycle, though seemingly ages in the future, is already underway (for my new viewers, many potential 2028 presidential candidates are already swirling, and if you want to know more about that, feel free to check out my previous article on the subject).

As my readers that have been keeping up with the content lately should be well aware, my recent election predictions have pitted current Vice President JD Vance, who I believe to be the heavy favorite to win the 2028 Republican presidential nomination at the time of writing, against some of the strongest possible Democratic opposition. As to not seem that I am treating Vance unfairly, in this article, I’ll be predicting the outcome of an election between vice presidents, with Vance going up against Democratic former Vice President and 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Now, for the sake of clarity, I see this matchup as a pure hypothetical. Frankly, the likelihood of Harris running in 2028 after her humiliating loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 election is, to me, essentially zero. So, to my readers, treat this matchup as a sort of apology to Vance for some of my previous predictions in which I was hard on him as a candidate. Let’s hope he doesn’t forget to thank me (I know I’m hilarious, no need to repeat it).

Well then. For the sake of possibility of impossibility, let’s take a look at how I think an election between Kamala Harris and JD Vance would play out if it was held today.

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.

Now, before I begin my analysis, let me make one thing very clear: JD Vance is a significantly weaker candidate than Donald Trump. While he may appeal slightly more to moderate and suburban voters, he lacks the charisma and controversiality that granted his former presidential running mate generational turnout in rural America and margins amongst the white working class. That being said, Kamala Harris would be a full caps HORRIBLE candidate for the Democrats to run in 2028. Not only did we see her lack of appeal essentially to voters across the board (particularly Latino voters, a traditionally Democratic voting bloc that Harris won by just 5%, and minority voters in general), but running a candidate that lost on the national level in the cycle that directly preceded the one in which you are running them is never a good idea. It’s worth noting that Vance would retain all seven of the “core swing states” that have decided the past three elections (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada), but as I’m sure you all know by now the reasons this would be the case, what I really want to talk about is Vance narrowly flipping New Hampshire, a state Republicans have not won since 2000 on the presidential level. Let’s take a look at why I think Vance would win it in a hypothetical matchup with Kamala Harris.

Why Vance Would Win New Hampshire

New Hampshire is not typically discussed as a swing state. In essentially every matchup except for this one, it would be classified as leaning Democratic at the minimum. However, it is more competitive than the predicted margins make it out to be: in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by just 0.4% over Republican Donald Trump. New Hampshire tends to favor more establishment candidates on either side, and therefore, while JD Vance would represent a step down from Trump in terms of candidate quality for the vast majority of states, he would actually be a better candidate for New Hampshire. While Vance’s policies may not be the most moderate, his demeanor is far less inherently extreme than Trump's, a positive in New Hampshire and Northeastern states in general (though aside from New Hampshire, it’s very difficult to imagine a Northeastern state voting for a Republican on the national level). I believe that these factors, coupled with Kamala Harris’ (lack of) quality as a candidate in 2028, would be just enough for Vance to flip a state that Harris won by just 2.8% over Donald Trump in 2024.

Fundamentally, if Kamala Harris wins the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, the result would be a comfortable loss in the general election to JD Vance (or nearly every potential Republican nominee, for that matter). To my Democratic viewers out there, I advise you to merely hope that this situation never plays out.