Wall Street Journal Columnist Takes Early Victory Lap Trashing 2028 Dems: ‘You May Already Have Lost’

The Wall Street Journal‘s Matthew Continetti took an early victory lap under the headline, “Democrats, You May Already Have Lost the 2028 Election” in his latest column.

“Stephen A. Smith has a confession to make. The 58-year-old ESPN personality is mulling a run for the Democratic presidential nomination,” began Continetti. ” The 2028 Democratic primary is wide open—and the emerging field of candidates is lackluster. Every Democrat preparing to run has weaknesses. At this writing, only two potential candidates have double-digit support in the RealClearPolitics polling average. Both are vulnerable.”

The longtime conservative commentator went on to enumerate those weaknesses in further detail.

Former vice president Kamala Harris, he wrote, “would again have to defend a Biden administration that voters repudiated after four years. She still hasn’t said what she would have done differently from her former boss. Despite being a bestselling author, she is a master at not saying much at all.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), he argued, has “pent two decades making the Golden State into a progressive petri dish of high taxes, stultifying regulations and woke culture. Democrats who aren’t enraptured by Mr. Newsom’s Vogue magazine spread understand that his record may repel swing voters.”

Continetti was far from finished. He submitted that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is green, especially on the foreign policy front, that ex-transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg “carries baggage” and struggles with minority voters, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) may struggle thanks to the party’s anti-Israel turn, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) “hasn’t been able to shed his reputation for fabulism.”

“Remember the ‘undercard’ debates from the 2016 Republican campaign? Democrats may be in for a rerun,” concluded Continetti. “Mock Stephen A. Smith all you like. He may never make it to the debate stage. But others with little or no political experience will surely be tempted. And in today’s media environment, what begins on the fringe often turns into the main event.

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