The cohort does not agree on any champion, or even a short list of potential champions, for 2028, and even if it did, third-party bids are fraught (they risk throwing the election to a worse major-party candidate) and hard to organize. The combination of closed primaries in many jurisdictions and the “pox on both your houses” comportment of many independents also means that we sit out primary elections at higher rates than Republicans and Democrats do; this yields general-election candidates from those parties who are less acceptable to us than would be the case if we had participated.