I recently asked my friends on Facebook who they would want as the Democratic candidate in 2026 and got a ton of responses.

Keep in mind a few things before I report what they said. First, my Facebook friends are almost entirely other liberals (duh) so this skews that direction. Second, many made the proper distinction between who they would personally like to see as President and who they think would be the best candidate (since the two are not necessarily the same). Thirdly, this was not any sort of well-designed polling. Some people named more than one candidate, some only named who they didn’t want (“Anyone but X!”), some merely said things like “I’ll vote for a toaster for President if it’s a Democrat.”

Keep in mind as well that a year is a lifetime in politics. Someone new could pop up between now and election day, and any of these named candidates could do something to ruin their chances.

So I counted mentions, even if some people mentioned more than one.

As expected, the name that popped up most is Gavin Newsom. He certainly has dominated the news lately with his brilliant attacks on Trump, and that has endeared him to many Democrats. Of course, he comes from California, and we’re going to get all their electoral votes no matter who the candidate is, so I’m not sure personally if that would be the best choice. (On the other hand, I voted for Harris, and she’s from California as well.)

Close behind was Pete Buttigieg, although most everyone who named him commented that they don’t think he has a chance. (Hey, people said the same thing about Obama when he started running.) Personally, I think Buttigieg would be great — I’d love to have someone of his intelligence in charge. However, I think he should probably get more experience. The highest office he has ever been elected to was mayor of a town in Indiana. Since getting married, he moved to Michigan and people thought he did that so he could run for Senate from there, but he shot that idea down early and has taken no steps to do so.

Third was J.B. Pritzker, another governor who has been wonderful at attacking Trump and giving Trump the respect he deserves (that is, none whatsoever). Pritzker has the personality many Democrats like, does and says the right thing, and may be a possibility.

Those three were a bit ahead of the next group. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led the second tier. Most respondents admitted they’d want her but know that she probably could not get elected (yet). Some mentioned her as a VP choice. AOC is beloved by many Democrats but, let’s face it, she’s still young and only a representative. She probably should run for Schumer’s seat when he retires (which hopefully will be soon) and get more experience first. She could wait until 2060 and still be younger than Biden or Trump.

My own governor Josh Shapiro was in the next tier, along with Senator Mark Kelly, Governor Andy Beshear, and Representative Jasmine Crockett.

I was surprised to see that my friends hardly listed Cory Booker and Kamala Harris … Both of those would be high on my list, although I can see why people would say that Harris already had her chance and it’s not a good idea to have her try again.

In any event, this means absolutely nothing, but it was interesting to see who was popular among my Facebook friends.