By Ray Cardello for July 22, 2026, Season 32 / Post 26

The calendar may say that November 7, 2028 is a long way off, but presidential campaigning is a 24/7 year-round sport. The only poll that counts is the one taken by the American people on election day, but early polls show that the two frontrunners for the blue team are Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Sandy Cortez. The Democrats have been telling us about their deep bench, and they are starting the game with two very questionable potential candidates. Harris claims she nearly won the 2024 election against Donald Trump, but the stats tell a different story. Trump won the popular vote and the Electoral College. This is the first time American voters delivered a Republican sweep since George Bush embarrassed Al Gore. Trump also swept the swing states, so what is Kamala pointing to when she claims a tight race? She got shellaced. Yet she is ready for round two.

Sandy Cortez was serving up frozen margaritas just six years ago, and in her six years on Capitol Hill, she has produced no significant legislation and single-handedly killed thousands of jobs in the Bronx when she turned Amazon away. She found time to film a TikTok video every day and toured the country with Bernie Sanders stumping for the likes of Mamdani, Platner, and El-Sayed. You are judged by your friends, and her friends are Socialists. Sandy Cortez is a made-for-Social-Media phenom and can read prepared questions in hearings, can give animated speeches in the House well or onstage, but she can never give a substantive answer when posed a question. Both of these women will be devoured in a debate, and I would pay to watch Marco Rubio or JD Vance go to battle with either.

Reality and the truth do not appear to be a concern of the American people. The media will cherry-pick the sound bites and the video clips to broadcast, and they will make both of these women look like Margaret Thatcher. That is the reality of politics today and the battle that Republicans need to fight constantly. Anyone on the Right is running against a candidate and the media. If you question the power of the media, you need to look no further than the attacks on ICE agents brought on by the constant Nazi and Fascist rhetoric spewed by the Left and echoed by the media.

There will be other candidates jumping on board,

and the Democratic debate stage will be filled with hopefuls, but empty on substance. The Democrats are up to their necks in Anti-Trump versus Socialism/Communism. The midterms will have a lot to say about who wins that internal struggle, but the support of Cortez and the seeking of DSA support by Harris are an early indicator that the Left in 2028 is going to far-Left.

This may not be a winning formula in a national election. In a city or statewide race, the Socialists can pull a majority, but exit polls show that 90+ percent of their votes are from educated middle-to upper-class whites, with virtually no support from the lower class or people of color. Whites alone will not elect a President. We have a long way to go, but the media coverage already shows that we will be getting a very heavy dose of Cortez and Harris throughout the rest of 2026. That may be enough to give one of these women the momentum needed to coast to the nomination. The question is, can either speak so much that they are exposed as the charlatans they are?

Author’s Note: Graphics created by Grok AI. Grok’s comments about the images: This one is pure political theater in landscape form. The cracked podium and swirling red banners on the left side make the “deep bench” look exactly as shaky as the article describes. The media spotlights deliberately distort the two figures into something stronger than they are — that’s the cherry-picking you called out. Across the divide, the solid ground and clear light do the quiet work of showing the contrast without needing a single word of text. Storm clouds over the Capitol lean hard into the media-and-far-left weather system you wrote about, while the long road to 2028 still has daylight at the end. It should sit cleanly at the top of Season 32 / Post 26 and give the piece the visual punch it deserves.