Do the Best People Run for President?

My grandfather argued no. And other big questions for 2028: Will America finally elect a woman, a member of Gen X or a Mike?

I’m Darren Samuelsohn, and this is love, journalism.

Welcome to new subscribers joining today from Lisa Camooso Miller’s Friday Reporter feature! Over there, we talked about how I know when it’s time to walk away from a newsroom— a lesson that loops right back to my grandfather, Lew, who always checked whether he was still learning something about the world.

My grandfather also had some very specific thoughts on the people who run for president. Since Lisa and I just wrapped up talking about the toll of campaign coverage, I’m dusting off his old question to kick off the race for 2028 today...

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Satirical presidential candidate Vermin Supreme at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (Photo: Darren Samuelsohn)

The best people never run for president.

My late grandfather, Lew, said that every election cycle. It was the frustrating answer I got as a kid whenever I asked him who he was voting for or who he thought would win.

His answer usually came with a free, hardbound book pulled off his shelves: The Powers That Be, All The President’s Men and Pulitzer. Later in life, approaching 100, he stopped paying attention to the news altogether. But all he wanted to talk about during my visits in early 2016 was when Joe Biden was going to be president.

Inauguration Day 2020. Photo: Darren Samuelsohn

Now, we’re right back at the starting line. The race for 2028 begins right now, and I’m wondering all over again what lies ahead. For the first time in my career, I’m sitting out direct coverage of the midterms. But just because I’m on the sidelines doesn’t mean I can’t write or pose a few big questions.

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I got my first real taste of presidential campaign coverage in 1992. The Miami Herald let a handful of high school reporters - including yours truly - spend Election Day traversing South Florida to talk to kids participating in a mock election. We filed our stories that night from the newsroom overlooking the bay.

I even managed to get the editors to consent to a headline calling President George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot the “twerp, the dweeb and the idiot” — though I wasn’t very clear on which one was which.

By the 2000 campaign, I was a professional reporter, and my memories are a blur of distinct, chaotic moments: Editors telling me “no” when I asked to branch out from my outdoors beat to cover a Ralph Nader rally; leaving Olympia, Washington, for a cross-country drive the morning after Election Day when nobody knew who won, collecting front pages along the highway where headlines literally read that no one knew what was happening; looking for my first DC job while the Supreme Court did its thing.

love, journalism

Later, my memories as a climate reporter usually involved inventing new traditions - like golfing or going to the movies on Election Day to brace for the brutal late nights of writing around what it meant for actual energy and environmental policy once we had winners.

It was a completely different beast when I moved to POLITICO. We’d cover current elections, the following election and pretty much anything that even sniffed of voting. As the clock ticked toward 2020, we had a surreal split-screen: one small team of reporters including me was still stuck covering the legal fallout of 2016, while campaign teams were already embedding in Iowa. Josh Lyman had it right on The West Wing when he said these cycles just keep happening sooner and sooner.

Which brings us back to our more recent reality. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, I wore both the reporter and editor hats to publish this headline with Kimberly Leonard at Insider in late 2022:

A 3-way game of geriatric chicken featuring Trump, Biden, and Bernie has younger Democrats and Republicans itching for change

At that early stage, we reported why there’d be no open primary. Biden, the oldest sitting president, insisted he was the only one who could stop Trump - the former oldest president. To make things stickier, Biden wouldn’t step aside partly out of concern that Bernie Sanders, who was older still, might capture the nomination if he left early.

So, even though these next few weeks will be dominated by the 2026 midterm results, make no mistake: 2028 is very much happening. In fact, it has been underway since the exact moment Donald Trump notched his W around midnight of Election Day 2024.

A collection of presidential campaign buttons and stickers on display at the New Hampshire State House Visitor Center in Concord. (Photo: Darren Samuelsohn)

Of course, we have no way of knowing who the eventual nominees will be. But based on my years on the election and politics beats, I can tell you a few things for certain.

First: Never bank on the front runners. Not this early. I still remember a POLITICO editorial brainstorm right after the 2012 election. I walked out of the room writing in my notebook that a Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton matchup was inevitable for 2016. Cut to two years later: I was on the campaign beat making a handy cheat sheet just to keep tabs on a GOP primary field that grew so large the debates required “kiddie tables.”

The original cheat sheet: Tracking the exploding 2016 GOP primary field on a notepad from the Port Hotel in Port Washington, Wisconsin. (Photo: Darren Samuelsohn)

As we look toward 2028, there are a few novel dynamics worth pondering. The potential list of historical “firsts” is long: our first female, Jewish, Hindu, Hispanic, Generation X or Millennial president. (Or, hey, maybe just a person named Mike, Michelle, Karen or Darren.)

Even the idea of a sitting vice president navigating a primary and general election to get across the finish line is rare. It hasn’t happened since 1988, and it has only occurred four times in American history .

The game is on. Who do you most wish would jump into the ring?