On “Next Up with Mark Halperin” on Thursday, Halperin assessed what he sees as the eight leading contenders for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, outlining the strengths and weaknesses of each. Halperin ranked former Vice President Kamala Harris as number 4 on the list, behind Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, and Pete Buttigieg.

MARK HALPERIN, HOST: Number four, Kamala Harris. Wasn’t on my list a week ago when I was putting it together. I gotta be honest, this is a huge change. I’ve moved her from off the list to number four. Why have I done that? She did an interview with the New York Times that was leaned really much more firmly into the prospect of running than she has in terms of the tone of it and the body language. So I made some calls and determined, yes, in fact, she is really thinking about this. She sees the field, not necessarily as particularly strong. She sees the experience she has. And so I’ve moved her to number four. Fourth most likely nominee, Kamala Harris. Known strength, she’s got a national profile, former vice president, Democratic nominee. And she’s got, I think this is an undervalued asset, even though people know about it. She’s got strong ties to the core constituencies of the party, to black voters, to female voters, to labor. She’s got that. And that is a huge opportunity for her to consolidate support, particularly if Governor Newsom doesn’t run. I think her secret strength is she’s unshackled. Same thing is said about Kamala Harris, and it’s true, as was said about Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and some others. In private, she’s a much different person. Rachel Maddow said this week, she regretted not pushing Kamala Harris in their interview during her book tour to be more forthcoming, to be more open about what she’s really like, because Rachel Maddow’s experienced it, as I have. She’s a different person. And so the secret strength is being unshackled. She may show more of that naturally. She may put that out there in a more natural way. And I think that Kamala Harris, the private Kamala Harris brought public, just as was said about Mitt Romney after the election, when that documentary came out about him and showed the private Mitt Romney, that unshackled Kamala Harris, I think is a big potential strength. All right, known weakness, questions about her political execution. You saw that when she ran for president in 2020 cycle. You saw it as vice president. You saw it when she became the nominee in 2024. She just is not that good under pressure. I’ve said it before. Her biggest weakness is she does not like to make difficult choices under pressure, tough decisions when the focus is on her. That’s a known weakness. The secret weakness, and I picked this up throughout my reporting, which is why she didn’t make the list, elites in the party, the kind of people I talked to, the donors, the strategists, the other elected officials, they really, the doubts about her run very deep. They just don’t think she’s up to trusting to be the nominee again. Now, some people in the party and progressives who would love there to be a female president, they say, no, we just can’t nominate another woman. It’s not worth the risk after what happened with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, but the doubts about her run more than just in terms of biology, the doubts about her run to her competence. And it’s very difficult, even in this anti-establishment period where the elites don’t control things as much as they did. It’s very difficult to win under those circumstances.

Halperin explains his methodology:
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