When will 2028 presidential candidates announce?

As of November 8, 2026, no major candidate has formally declared for the 2028 presidential election. The midterms on November 3 were the starting gun in recent cycles. Once they are over, would-be candidates have no reason to stay out of the way of their party's congressional campaigns.

What happened in recent cycles

The first serious campaigns have come anywhere from one week to about four and a half months after the midterms. Most of the field was in by the summer before the election year:

• 2024 cycle: Donald Trump announced on November 15, 2022, one week after that year's midterms. Nikki Haley followed on February 14, 2023, Vivek Ramaswamy on February 21 and Ron DeSantis on May 24 (candidate list).
• 2020 cycle: John Delaney was unusually early, on July 28, 2017. The main wave came after the 2018 midterms. Elizabeth Warren formed an exploratory committee on December 31, 2018, and Kamala Harris announced on January 21, 2019, Bernie Sanders on February 19 and Joe Biden on April 25 (candidate list).
• 2016 cycle: Ted Cruz was the first major candidate, on March 23, 2015, followed by Rand Paul on April 7, Hillary Clinton on April 12 and Marco Rubio on April 13. Jeb Bush and Donald Trump entered in mid-June (Republican list, Democratic list).

If 2028 follows the same pattern, expect the first launches between late 2026 and spring 2027, and most of the field by mid-2027. The first contests are in January 2028.

Why candidates wait, and why they don't wait long

A formal campaign means registering a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission and filing regular public reports on fundraising and spending. Many candidates first form an exploratory committee, as Warren did in December 2018 and Buttigieg in January 2019, to raise money and test support before committing. An early launch buys time to build donor lists and staff in the early states. Waiting lets a candidate keep a day job, such as a governorship or a Senate seat, without looking distracted.

What the likely candidates have said

Our 2028 candidates page lists everyone who appears in national primary polls, with a sourced note for those who have said something public about running. Among Republicans, JD Vance has said there is "a chance" he will not run, Marco Rubio has said he has "no plans at this time", and Ron DeSantis has declined to rule out another run (Reuters via Yahoo News). Each candidate has a profile page with their polling, head-to-head matchups and prediction-market odds, for example Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and JD Vance.

How we will cover announcements

A candidate moves to "declared" on our pages only after a formal announcement or a filed exploratory committee, with a link to it. Until then, a high poll number means only that pollsters ask about that person. The Democratic and Republican primary averages update as new polls come in.

Numbers on this page are computed from the open dataset each time the site is rebuilt. Method: methodology. Corrections: corrections log.