Top 100 Most Likely to Become the Next President of the United States

The Ledger Next U.S. President Index is a forward-looking assessment of who is best positioned to become the next President of the United States.

This is not simply a presidential poll and it is not a betting-odds table.

The ranking combines current polling, prediction-market expectations, political position, party influence, nomination pathways, electoral viability and The Ledger’s broader influence methodology.

Rank	Candidate	Party
1	JD Vance	Republican
2	Marco Rubio	Republican
3	Gavin Newsom	Democratic
4	Kamala Harris	Democratic
5	Pete Buttigieg	Democratic
6	Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	Democratic
7	Jon Ossoff	Democratic
8	Josh Shapiro	Democratic
9	Elissa Slotkin	Democratic
10	Andy Beshear	Democratic
11	Mark Kelly	Democratic
12	JB Pritzker	Democratic
13	Ron DeSantis	Republican
14	Gretchen Whitmer	Democratic
15	Wes Moore	Democratic
16	Raphael Warnock	Democratic
17	Cory Booker	Democratic
18	Ruben Gallego	Democratic
19	Chris Murphy	Democratic
20	Nikki Haley	Republican
21	Donald Trump Jr.	Republican
22	Vivek Ramaswamy	Republican
23	Brian Kemp	Republican
24	Glenn Youngkin	Republican
25	Tim Scott	Republican
26	Tucker Carlson	Republican / Conservative
27	Sarah Huckabee Sanders	Republican
28	Ted Cruz	Republican
29	Josh Hawley	Republican
30	Tulsi Gabbard	Republican
31	Robert F. Kennedy Jr.	Republican-aligned
32	Elise Stefanik	Republican
33	Byron Donalds	Republican
34	Katie Britt	Republican
35	Tom Cotton	Republican
36	Hakeem Jeffries	Democratic
37	Jared Polis	Democratic
38	Ro Khanna	Democratic
39	Abigail Spanberger	Democratic
40	Mikie Sherrill	Democratic
41	Amy Klobuchar	Democratic
42	Tammy Duckworth	Democratic
43	John Fetterman	Democratic
44	Maura Healey	Democratic
45	Roy Cooper	Democratic
46	Gina Raimondo	Democratic
47	Rahm Emanuel	Democratic
48	Tim Walz	Democratic
49	Michelle Obama	Democratic
50	Stacey Abrams	Democratic
51	Josh Stein	Democratic
52	Katie Hobbs	Democratic
53	Michelle Lujan Grisham	Democratic
54	Kathy Hochul	Democratic
55	Tammy Baldwin	Democratic
56	Angela Alsobrooks	Democratic
57	Chris Van Hollen	Democratic
58	Brian Schatz	Democratic
59	Lisa Blunt Rochester	Democratic
60	Chris Coons	Democratic
61	Pramila Jayapal	Democratic
62	Jasmine Crockett	Democratic
63	Maxwell Frost	Democratic
64	Abdul El-Sayed	Democratic
65	Zohran Mamdani	Democratic
66	Gretchen Driskell	Democratic
67	Andy Kim	Democratic
68	Sara Jacobs	Democratic
69	Jason Crow	Democratic
70	Jake Auchincloss	Democratic
71	Mike Johnson	Republican
72	Kristi Noem	Republican
73	Doug Burgum	Republican
74	Lee Zeldin	Republican
75	Greg Abbott	Republican
76	Eric Schmitt	Republican
77	Dan Crenshaw	Republican
78	Wesley Hunt	Republican
79	Nancy Mace	Republican
80	Mike Lawler	Republican
81	Jim Banks	Republican
82	Dave McCormick	Republican
83	Tim Sheehy	Republican
84	Kevin Stitt	Republican
85	Spencer Cox	Republican
86	Rand Paul	Republican
87	Mike Pompeo	Republican
88	Tom Homan	Republican
89	Lara Trump	Republican
90	Jared Kushner	Republican-aligned
91	Mark Cuban	Independent / Democratic-leaning
92	Jamie Dimon	Independent
93	Dwayne Johnson	Independent
94	Matthew McConaughey	Independent
95	Andrew Yang	Independent
96	Stephen A. Smith	Independent
97	Howard Schultz	Independent
98	Oprah Winfrey	Independent / Democratic-leaning
99	An Emerging 2026–28 Governor or Senator	Undetermined
100	An Unidentified Outsider Candidate	Undetermined

How The Ledger Determines the Ranking

The ranking begins with measurable election information:

Polling Position
Current national and early-state primary polling.

Prediction Markets
Market-implied expectations about nomination and election outcomes.

Nomination Probability
The realistic path to becoming the nominee of a major political party.

General-Election Path
The candidate’s plausible ability to win the Electoral College.

These factors are then combined with The Ledger’s Six Pillars.

The Six Pillars

Influence

How much influence does the candidate currently possess within American politics, government, media and their own party?

Power

Does the candidate currently control an important office, government institution, donor network or political organization?

Momentum

Is the candidate gaining support, attention, endorsements and political strength—or losing them?

Media Presence

Can the candidate command national attention and define political conversations?

Global Relations

Does the candidate have foreign-policy experience, international credibility or established relationships that strengthen presidential viability?

Sentiment

How do voters, donors, party leaders, activists and political institutions currently respond to the candidate?

The Eight Presidential Pressure Tests

The traditional Eight Pressure Tests are then applied specifically to presidential viability:

Political Power — Current authority and political leverage.

Economic Power — Fundraising capacity, donor access and credibility on economic issues.

Military & Security — National-security credibility and commander-in-chief readiness.

Technology & Innovation — Ability to engage with emerging economic and technological issues.

Global Reach — Foreign-policy experience and international stature.

Decision Authority — Demonstrated ability to govern and make consequential decisions.

Replaceability — Whether the candidate possesses a political coalition or identity that another candidate could easily inherit.

Systemic Impact — How dramatically the candidate’s presidency could alter American and global politics.

The Party Power Factor

Presidential elections are not won by individual popularity alone.

Political parties determine access to:

• Voters
• Donors
• Campaign infrastructure
• Endorsements
• Activists
• State organizations
• Ballot access
• Media attention
• Presidential coalitions

For that reason, The Ledger gives significant weight to a candidate’s ability to control, inherit or unify their political party.

Rankings Can Move Quickly

This index should be substantially more dynamic than The Ledger 100.

A candidate could move ten or twenty places because of:

• Midterm results
• Trump endorsement
• Candidate announcements
• Primary polling
• Fundraising
• Debates
• Scandals
• Economic conditions
• Wars or international crises
• Major endorsements
• Health or personal decisions
• Electoral victories or defeats

The question is not:

“Who is most famous today?”

It is:

“Who currently possesses the strongest realistic pathway to becoming the next President of the United States?”

That is the question The Ledger Next U.S. President Index is designed to answer.

Editorial Note

The Ledger Next U.S. President Index is an analytical projection and not an endorsement of any candidate or political party. Rankings reflect current information and may change materially as the 2028 election approaches.