Ro Khanna emerging as Vance rival for 2028

If you are a regular reader of mine, you know there is one candidate in the Democrat Party that terrifies me… Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).

I have written about him numerous times, warning people that he will be formidable if he decides to run for president, and now he sounds like 2028 could be his year.

Ro Khanna – future of the party

Khanna first took office in 2017, and he was formidable from the outset.

I saw someone who very much reminded me of Barack Obama when he first popped up on the scene.

He is one of the few Democrats who will go on Fox News and not embarrass himself, and while I know he has a far-left agenda, when he talks, he comes off as someone very reasonable and grounded, and that is what worries me so much about him.

I really started to worry about him as a possible candidate in 2028 after The Atlantic published a piece titled “Ro Khanna Wants to Be the Future of the Democratic Party.”

GOP lining up behind Vance

I am sure most of you have reached this conclusion already, but the moment Donald Trump named JD Vance his vice president, he all but ensured that Vance would be the frontrunner in what is expected to be a crowded GOP field for the 2028 election.

I suspect Nikki Haley may take another shot, as will my candidate, Governor Ron DeSantis, but Vance will have Trump and MAGA behind him. Trump’s term will dictate just how much of a frontrunner Vance is, but I can already see the party getting in line behind him.

To that point, Senator Jim Banks (R-IN) stated, “I think it's inevitable at this point that Vance will be the [GOP] nominee in 2028.”

At the last CPAC conference, there was a straw poll to see who the frontrunner was for 2028. Vance took it with 61% support, with Steve Bannon in second at 12%. Now, this conference has become a MAGA conference, so that was not unexpected, but it does show that MAGA is already with Vance, even though Vance was once a never-Trumper.

Khanna Visits Ohio

I love to try to read the tea leaves when it comes to politics, and was quite proud of myself for predicting in 2016 that Kamala Harris and Tulsi Gabbard were likely to be considered contenders for the Democrat nomination if Joe Biden sat out the election. Joe entered it, but Harris and Gabbard were both in the running. I can still remember people asking me, “Who?!” when I said their names, but I just had a feeling they would be right there.

I have that same feeling about Khanna now, but I think he could be far more formidable. I am even more convinced after Khanna went to Vance’s backyard to speak at the City Club of Cleveland.

In part, he stated, "Vance and Musk want to completely get government out of the way to usher in a new Gilded Age, so that corporate elites, particularly tech titans, can take the wheel. I say it's time to turn the tables. It's time to put Silicon Valley in the service of America, not America in the service of Silicon Valley. That's why today I'm calling for a new economic patriotism. What we need in this country is a new economic patriotism, not a second Gilded Age."

Notice he did not say “Trump,” but rather “Vance and Musk.” This is what I would call a challenge, and it is one that Vance and the GOP better take seriously. Vance has to be very careful who he picks as his VP because he could lose support if he picks someone like Vivek Ramaswamy, a ticket I could never support. I can live with Vance, but I could never pull the handle for a ticket that would put that snake-oil salesman Ramaswamy one breath away from the Oval Office. Beware GOP, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and you better take this threat from Khanna very seriously.