Mirsky's List: It's August, So Look at These Prez Candidates, the Strongest Thus Far for 2028!

This is Exeter NH Attorney David Mirsky, reporting from the front lines of Presidential Election 2028, here in the First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary State, New Hampshire USA.

And so it has been relatively quiet here in the Beautiful Vacation State of New Hampshire during this much maligned Summer of 2025 (maligned by the news media which strives endlessly to give you the worst side of everything). New Hampshire's normal Summer Income has been diminished this year, nearly cut off by our curious chaotic President's actions in insulting and otherwise antagonizing our great neighbor to the North, Canada. And so many of our usual paying customers at all our inviting places of summer tourist business, appear to be quietly but insistently boycotting us. (This is my personal conclusion from hearing and seeing what is going on, and from noting the unusually high availability of parking spots along our glorious beautiful Hampton Beach.) I'm here today to do what we often do here in Exeter, New Hampshire, which is to discuss who will be coming here in the upcoming days and months to run for the US Presidency in #Election2028.

I have a few opinions on this, some potentially insightful & some maybe just interesting or downright annoying. It all depends on how you roll.

First, I'll discuss the Dems. So here is my current list of the strongest:

DEMOCRATS

1. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California. Resilient, resourceful, and fearless. That's how I see California Governor Gavin Newsom at the moment. He's not afraid of our sometimes scary current Prez, and not afraid of anyone else. Gavin Newsom can handle the job of governing a State large and complex enough to be a country. And he's doing a great job at it. So, a good choice in my view.

2. Former US Vice President and 2024 Democratic Nominee Kamala Harris. Yes, she is on the list. We have to include the people whose names are known right now, so I'm including Kamala Harris. Does Kamala Harris have any chance, any chance in hell, of winning the US Presidency in 2028? No! I don't think so. I don't know any real people here in New Hampshire who would want to go through anything resembling the 2024 Presidential Race again. And I really don't care to read a book about, or hear at all about, why SHE LOST THE ELECTION in 2024. Many of us worked very hard for her in 2024, very very hard. But we were just being loyal Democrats, those of us who did that. Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolph had an interesting take on Veep Harris on #SNL just prior to the election; we were expecting it to be helpful to her, but no. Maya Rudolph is too honest for such behavior. So, soldier on, if you will, Kamala Harris.

3. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (known by the youth of America, and others, as @AOC), is often mentioned as a possible choice for US President for 2028 (even by me in my previous article), but calling it as I see it right now I would say that U.S. Representative Ocasio-Cortez from New York is too divisive to win a national election, especially now that it appears she might appoint a stridently Socialist person like NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for an important position in her administration. Daryl Hall & John Oates had a song in the 1980s that just about says it: "I Can't Go For That."

REPUBLICANS

1. Current US Vice President JD Vance is Number One right at this very minute, I guess, but NHGOP activists beware: His star may be on the decline. And it happened so quickly! Just look at all the problems Our Country is facing right now economically. And the Epstein thing, whatever it may indeed be. I don't think Mr. Vance can handle that thing effectively for his Boss and still remain viable as an individual candidate for 2028. The President appears to have placed JD Vance in charge of solving the Epstein Credibility Crisis, and even virulent Trump supporter US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia has appeared to be pissed off. And traditionally, it is difficult for a sitting Vice President to define himself both clearly and positively amidst the kind of chaos the US is enduring at the moment. But he's a clever politician, so we'll see.

2. US Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. Definitely a resilient fellow, a man with his own mind. If you want that. Maybe you do. I think Ted Cruz could even win the US Presidency in 2028, especially if the Dems decide to reject their best candidate, California Governor Gavin Newsom.

3. The Republican Party's situation is really in flux at the moment. If the NHGOP won't back Ted Cruz, maybe a total newcomer might be their choice. Against the tide of reason and the course of history itself, maybe a viable option might be New Hampshire's own Karoline Leavitt, the current White House Press Secretary. Karoline Leavitt, a working mother, is very articulate and definitely represents, to a significant degree, the policy views of many Americans.

So I think I've said just about enough here, and I will leave it at that, for now. As an oldster (like me?) might say: Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Until we next cross paths, I'm hoping you will have a great August and that you will enjoy some form of vacation this Summer.

Stay gold! And if you see our glorious American flag, just salute it and thank God you live in America and not somewhere else.