Democrats are still licking their wounds from then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat last November — and grappling with the implications of President Trump’s second term.

For the moment, they are essentially a leaderless party. But that will change in due course.

The 2028 presidential field looks wide open from this distance. But some prominent Democrats have already been making moves that seem plainly geared toward the next presidential cycle.

The Hill ranked the Republican presidential contenders Sunday.

Here are The Hill’s rankings of where the Democratic contenders stand.

1. California Gov. Gavin Newsom

The California governor, never a shrinking violet, has ramped up his criticisms of Trump in recent weeks — to his apparent benefit.

Gavin Newsom has taken to trolling Trump on social media, often with postings that ape the president’s idiosyncratic and hyperbolic language.

In recent days, he has launched a line of merchandise in Trump’s signature red bearing slogans like “Newsom was right about everything” and declaring in all caps “Many people are saying this is the greatest merchandise ever made.”

Yet it’s not all fun and games. In a public conversation at a Politico forum late last week, he suggested Trump would run for an unconstitutional third term and called the president “simply the most destructive and damaging individual in my lifetime.”

The no-holds-barred approach appears to be paying off for Newsom. In a new national poll of Democratic primary voters from Emerson College, Newsom was well ahead of his two main rivals, Harris and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Notably he had been third, behind both of them, when the same organization had conducted a poll in June.

There are, of course, Newsom skeptics. They question the electability of such a stereotypically Californian candidate in the battleground states of the Rust Belt and Southwest.

But for now, Newsom has catapulted himself to front-runner status.

2. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY)

If Democratic voters want to supplant their party establishment, make a generational change and shift to the left, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — “AOC" to fans and detractors alike — is the obvious choice.

The New York congresswoman drives plenty of Republican voters to apoplexy, of course. But voters who are even somewhat sympathetic to her policies view her as a charismatic and politically courageous........

© The Hill