Doomscroll News

Tag: election

  • The Republican Gauntlet: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Top 100 Contenders for the 2028 Presidential Nomination

    Executive Summary: The Race to Succeed Trump

    As of October 2025, President Donald J. Trump is nearly one year into his second, non-consecutive term. The Republican Party is entering a period of profound transition. President Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. His impending departure from the political stage in 2029 has set in motion an “invisible primary” for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.1

    This contest is the first truly open Republican primary in twelve years. It is already taking shape not in formal announcements, but in the strategic positioning of ambitious figures. These contenders are found within the administration, across the nation’s statehouses, and in the halls of Congress. The race to succeed Trump began, in many respects, the moment he secured the 2024 nomination.3

    A clear heir apparent dominates the emerging field: Vice President JD Vance. His position as the president’s deputy establishes him as the undisputed frontrunner.3 This standing is reinforced by his ideological alignment with the populist base and a commanding lead in early polling. His candidacy casts a long shadow over the entire field. It creates a gravitational pull that forces every other potential contender to define themselves in relation to him.

    The central dynamic of the 2028 primary will be whether any challenger can mount a credible campaign against the sitting Vice President. He is widely seen as the ideal successor to carry forward the Trumpian political legacy.1

    Beyond the Vice President, the field of potential candidates is vast. It can be categorized into distinct tiers of contention, each with its own strategic imperatives. This report organizes the 100 most likely contenders into a six-tier framework:

    • Tier 1: The Frontrunners: A small group of nationally recognized figures with established fundraising networks and a clear, immediate path to the nomination.
    • Tier 2: The Primary Contenders: High-profile senators, governors, and cabinet members who are highly likely to run and possess a plausible, albeit more challenging, path to victory.
    • Tier 3: The Cabinet & Governors’ Mansions: Sitting governors of major states and other senior administration officials who could break through with a combination of strong performance and favorable political circumstances.
    • Tier 4: The Capitol Hill Hopefuls: Influential members of the U.S. House and Senate building national profiles who represent the legislative wing of the party.
    • Tier 5: The Rising Stars & Dark Horses: The next generation of Republican talent, including lieutenant governors, attorneys general, and state legislators from across the country.
    • Tier 6: The Influencers & Long Shots: Unconventional candidates, media personalities, and declared long shots who may shape the debate even if their path to the nomination is improbable.

    The primary contest will be fought across several emerging ideological lanes within the party. The dominant lane is the MAGA/Populist movement, which demands unwavering loyalty to President Trump’s agenda. A second, diminished but still relevant, lane is the Establishment/Business wing, which seeks a more traditional, pro-business conservative leader. A third, and most tenuous, is the remnant Moderate/Anti-Trump faction, searching for a standard-bearer to move the party in a new direction. The success of any given candidate will depend on their ability to navigate this complex and often contradictory ideological landscape.

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  • The GOP’s ‘Chaos Caucus’ Is Paving the Way for a Trump Impeachment

    It’s becoming impossible to ignore the formation of a bizarre and deeply concerning political alliance between figures like Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie, with others like Anna Paulina Luna and Tim Burchett clearly operating from the same playbook. Their actions reek of a desperate, calculated push for relevance that has little to do with substantive governance and everything to do with generating headlines and manufacturing chaos.

    We see a pattern of performative stunts designed to distract. MTG admits she didn’t even read Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” before voting on it, then creates a spectacle to cover her own negligence. Mace acts as if she’s a representative for the United Kingdom, demanding the arrest of Prince Andrew. This isn’t random; it’s strategic.

    A central pillar of this strategy is the relentless push on the UAP/UFO issue, championed by figures like Burchett and Luna. First, they captured headlines with the Epstein files. Now, it seems the UAP/UFO narrative is the next card they’re all preparing to play.

    But here is where the intentions get truly weird and suspect. The ultimate goal of these manufactured spectacles, from Epstein to extraterrestrials, isn’t to hold the powerful accountable. It’s to create a chaotic media environment designed to, bizarrely enough, gin up support for the DNC. By dominating the conversation with conspiracies and sensationalism, they make the entire Republican party look unstable and unserious, pushing mainstream voters towards the perceived stability of the Democrats.

    This all feeds back into the more sinister, long-term play. With Massie’s history of clashing with Donald Trump, this calculated chaos is the perfect smokescreen. They are “spiking the punch bowl” to set the stage for a dramatic, headline-grabbing impeachment attempt against Trump in 2026. It’s a PR stunt designed to inflict maximum political damage heading into the 2028 election cycle, and the enthusiastic participation of Mace and others shows they are key players in this gambit.

    This is precisely why President Trump needs to get in front of this nonsense immediately. He needs to call it out for what it is: a coordinated campaign of distraction and political theater by supposed allies who are, in reality, undermining his agenda and the entire America First movement. He must expose their bizarre intentions before they can play their next card and derail the real work that needs to be done for the American people.

  • ‪Can Electors Go Rogue? The “Faithless Elector”‬

    ‪Can Electors Go Rogue? The “Faithless Elector”‬

    An elector can vote against the popular vote of their state. This is known as being a “faithless elector.” Historically, however, this has been rare and has never changed the outcome of a presidential election.

    Who are the electors? They are chosen by the political parties in each state. They are often party loyalists, chosen to recognize their service.

    Are there rules against it? Yes, many states have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate they are pledged to. The Supreme Court has upheld these laws, allowing states to penalize or replace faithless electors. As of 2024, 38 states and D.C. have such laws.

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  • The Architect of Your Anxiety

    The Architect of Your Anxiety

    Before you can build a political army or start a populist brushfire, you have to know what makes the masses tick. You need the cheat codes to the human soul. In the age of digital warfare, that cheat sheet looks something like this:

    1. Your Facebook “Likes”
    2. Your personality quiz answers
    3. Your politics (declared or assumed)
    4. Your age and gender
    5. Your location
    6. Your relationship status
    7. Your late-night status rants
    8. Your private messages
    9. Your friends (and their data, too)
    10. The events you pretend you’ll attend

    With this map to the public’s id, a new kind of political machine could be built. All it needed was a director with a vision and patrons willing to foot the bill for a bit of chaos.

    The Angel Investors of Anarchy

    Every chaotic startup needs its angel investors. For Steve Bannon’s particular brand of political disruption, the Mercer family was the venture capital firm willing to write the first big check. Billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, were the quiet benefactors of the new populist right. With a cool $10 million seed round, they handed Bannon the keys to Breitbart News after its founder’s death, letting him mod it from a conservative blog into the premier server for his populist worldview.

    Rebekah, in particular, was the hands-on operator, the one making sure her investment paid off by installing Bannon and Kellyanne Conway into the Trump campaign’s C-suite. The founder-funder relationship was a perfect match, until it spectacularly wasn’t. Like a messy public breakup you’d see unfold on …, the alliance imploded in 2018 when Bannon broke the cardinal rule—don’t talk smack about the CEO’s family. Rebekah hit the eject button, publicly declaring he’d taken her pet project “in the wrong direction” and effectively cutting off his VIP access.

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  • Seeking Visual Clarity on Voter Registration Data: A Suggestion for Judicial Watch

    Seeking Visual Clarity on Voter Registration Data: A Suggestion for Judicial Watch

    It is possible that a data visualization similar to the one proposed below, or one that addresses these specific points, has already been produced by Judicial Watch or other analysts. If so, my apologies for any redundancy. The intent of this article is to contribute constructively to the public understanding of voter registration data by suggesting a clear and informative method of visual presentation.

    Judicial Watch’s 2020 report identified 353 U.S. counties where their analysis indicated that total registered voters exceeded the estimated citizen voting-age population. To foster a more comprehensive understanding of these findings and the scale of the reported discrepancies, a detailed visual representation of this data would be highly beneficial for public discussion and analysis.

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