Trump will be reinaugurated in 9 days, and there are already telling signs of what the Republican nominee’s keys might look like in 2028.
It is unlikely Republicans will have a lot of keys in 2028, no matter who is on the ballot.
| Year | Party mandate | No primary contest | Incumbent seeking re-election | No third party | Strong short-term economy perception | Strong long-term economy perception | Major policy change | No social unrest | No scandal | No foreign or military failure | Major foreign or military success | Charismatic incumbent | Uncharismatic challenger | False keys |
| 2024 | False | True | False | True | False | False | False | True | True | False | False | False | True | 8 |
| 2028 | TBD in 2026 | Likely False | False | unknown | False | False | unknown | False | False | False | False | False | unknown | at least 8 |
Trump is going to have a lot of false keys. The only way an incumbent could seek re-election is if JD Vance becomes president at some point during Trump’s second term. I think it is highly unlikely Trump will have a strong economy after his performance his first term. This will lead to social unrest and his handling of problems will generate at least one scandal. I don’t think he has the ability to create a solution in Israel, Palestine, or Ukraine, so there will not be any major foreign policy or military successes due to him, though there will likely be at least one failure.
Neither Trump nor JD Vance are charismatic.
It will be challenging for Republicans to win in 2028.
I’m also modifying the keys slightly to not be actual economic indicators but the perception of the economy. If more people perceive the economy is doing poorly, this matters more than actual economic performance. When we flip these keys for Harris in 2024 to what people perceived, do not give her a key for a non-existent foreign policy success, and BBB did not make any major permanent changes to US code aside from a lot of pork barrel spending, I realize she had 8 false keys.
The Republican media operation to make people perceive the economy as doing poorly combined with the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the support of the Republican party was successful in terms of getting Trump back into office.
It has never mattered before economic perception vs. reality because in the past they have been aligned strongly, but in our highly fractious media environment, and with social media spreading nonsense regularly, many people are not exposed to real data anymore and this is reflected in their extremist politics. This was not an issue when people read actual newspapers. But now it is.
So if Trump gets his way and we have the Trump tariffs during his presidency this will cause him to flip two keys to false immediately and permanently. He will not repeal his tariffs once they are in place. This will cause the economy to stutter.
The best we can hope for is Trump puts his tariffs in place this year, this burns up his political capital preventing him from doing further legislative damage. The impact on the economy will be severely negative, leading to his struggle to get anything else done.
I doubt the Republicans will win in 2028, unless if Democrats run a New Democrat, in which it will be a tossup.
Doubt me? Remember President Gore, President Kerry, and President Hillary Clinton?