Politico already hyping 'Democratic bench' for 2028, spotlighting two new governors just days on the job

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Political newcomer Wes Moore elected to be Maryland's next governor

Maryland governor-elect Wes Moore (D) joined 'Fox News Sunday' to discuss his candidacy and his response to allegations that he has embellished his life story on the campaign trail.

It's been less than a month into 2023 and only one candidate has launched a 2024 campaign, but Politico is already hyping the "Democratic bench" for the 2028 presidential election, spotlighting two new governors who were just sworn into the job. 

Former President Trump officially threw his hat in the ring one week after the November midterms and President Biden has repeatedly said he intends to seek reelection, but a potential rematch remains uncertain as several high-profile Republicans are signaling a primary battle and ongoing special counsel investigations could emerge as major obstacles for both Trump and Biden.

Politico columnist Jonathan Martin, however, is already looking beyond the 2024 election, rejecting the notion that Democrats don't have a bench of qualified candidates by declaring that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore "are ready to step up" for the highest office in the land just days after assuming their current roles. 

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are already being floated by Politico as presidential hopefuls in 2028 just days into their new roles (Mark Makela/Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Martin recapped their inaugurations, highlighting how Shapiro made headlines by being sworn in with a Jewish prayer book from Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, where an antisemitic gunman killed 11 in a 2018 mass shooting, and the star-studded attendees at Moore's ceremony including Oprah Winfrey, Chris Tucker, Cal Ripken and Eric Holder. 

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Both new governors reached deep into their states’ past to evoke America’s promise and trumpet their own. Shapiro recalled William Penn’s credo of religious tolerance and Moore reminded his audience that while they stood just up the hill from docks where slaves were brought the inauguration was no ‘indictment of the past’ but rather ‘a celebration of our collective future,’" Martin wrote Thursday. "If it all felt like a highly-choreographed preview of future ambitions, campaigns and perhaps swearing-ins, well, I wasn’t the only one with the same premonition," adding Holder told him about Moore, "This won’t be the only inauguration with him we go to."

Josh Shapiro is sworn in as Governor of Pennsylvania at the State Capitol Building on January 17, 2023 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

The Politico columnist expressed how he finds it "mystifying" how Democrats have taken a "glass-is-half-empty" approach to 2024 if 80-year-old Biden chooses not to run again, bemoaning that Vice President Kamala Harris "can’t win a general election," Pete Buttigieg "can’t win a primary" and that "there’s no way Michelle Obama will run, will she?" He then quickly pivoted to Democrats who had reelection significant victories in the midterms including Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia as well as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

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"Just beginning their governorships now, it may be too soon for Shapiro and Moore to run next year, and allies of both suggested to me they would be unlikely to run for president so soon. Yet as I made my way around Harrisburg and Annapolis last week, I was struck by the air of expectations, or really the operating assumption, that both new governors would run for president," Martin wrote. "Thanks in part to the aid, Moore and Shapiro will craft their first budgets with the chance to play Santa rather than the Grinch. Notably, though, what animates each of them is less any sort of spending wish list than a pair of non-ideological initiatives that just happen to be broadly appealing to general election voters."

Martin said the rhetoric of Shapiro and Moore "was an echo" of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. 

Maryland Governor Wes Moore delivers his inaugural address on the west side of the Maryland State House on January 18, 2023 in Annapolis, Maryland. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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Both Shapiro and Moore handily defeated their pro-Trump rivals in their gubernatorial races. 

Shapiro previously served as Pennsylvania's attorney general while Moore, a combat veteran, was in the private sector before becoming Maryland's first Black governor.