If Republican Steven Bannon faces off against Democrat Pete Buttigieg for the White House in 2028, it will likely be billed as the fourth consecutive “most important election of our lifetime.”
Politico reported Thursday that Buttigieg, the onetime US Transportation Secretary under former President Joe Biden, will announce he’s chosen not to run for Michigan’s open Senate seat in 2026.
The outlet said his decision was made on the advice of allies who worried a Senate campaign could divert time and resources away from a potential run for the Oval Office two years later.
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And also in an interview with Politico a day earlier, Bannon—the nativist former White House consigliere during President Donald Trump’s first administration—declined to rule out he was considering his own run for America’s highest office.
A source close to Bannon told the outlet that he has seriously discussed a 2028 run in private, while the MAGA stalwart said publicly he wouldn’t answer the question because it was “too absurd.”
The two could not be more radically different in terms of their politics.
Bannon is a populist former Breitbart News chairman who thrust the publication into the arms of the far-right, white nationalist alt-right movement.
Buttigieg is a studious progressive who, during his 2020 run for the Democratic nomination, said he supported a public option for health insurance and proposed a $35 billion plan to end systemic racism.
But their backgrounds and their roles as leading communicators in their respective political movements sometimes dovetail.
Both are Harvard-educated veterans: Buttigieg, 43, served in the U.S. Navy Reserve and Afghanistan in 2014; Bannon, 71, was a Navy officer who served on the USS Paul F. Foster.
And both have emerged as influential surrogates and commentators.
Buttigieg was praised during his time as Transportation Secretary for his willingness to take the Biden administration’s message to conservative audiences, frequently appearing on Fox News, where he often aggressively sparred with the network’s hosts.
The Wall Street Journal branded him “the Democrats' best—or at least bravest—surrogate."
Meanwhile, Bannon’s streaming show and podcast, War Room, has emerged as an essential media stop for Republicans—congressional aides told the Journal last month that an appearance on Bannon’s show results in more feedback flowing into the office than even spots on CNN or Fox News.
Bannon also reached across the aisle this week, sitting down for an interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is also a rumoured 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.
Both men, of course, went on to serve in presidential administrations, though that is where the similarities end.
While Buttigieg’s grasp of facts earned him plaudits for his skill as a debater, a study by the Brookings Institution identified the War Room as a top purveyor of misinformation among political podcasts.
Buttigieg was mayor of South Bend, Ind., while Bannon went to prison for contempt of Congress.
Politico reported that Buttigieg, who moved to Traverse City, Mich.—where his husband Chasten is from—after his tenure in the cabinet ended, has maintained a strong fundraising network in the Democratic Party should he choose to run for president.
“Pete was an A-list recruit and would have been a formidable candidate for the Senate had he chosen to run,” David Axelrod, the former Obama aide who is a mentor to Buttigieg, told Politico. “But had he won in ’26, it would almost certainly have taken him out of the conversation for ’28.”
A person close to him told the news outlet that the former Transportation Secretary plans to maintain a visible media profile as he weighs a 2028 White House run—he recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Bannon told Politico he does not “think like a politician” and, “All I do is back President Trump and try to move the populist national agenda and the America First agenda.”
One source close to Bannon added to the outlet that his focus currently rests with combatting Trump’s new White House advisor Elon Musk, the “parasitic illegal immigrant” and tech broligarch who he sees as a threat to the nationalist foundation of the MAGA movement.
Bannon came in second in a straw poll of potential Republican candidates at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, trailing only Vice President JD Vance.
Three sources told Politico that the War Room host has previously harbored White House ambitions.
One Republican consultant who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, the outlet reported, said he once declared he would only return to the Oval Office “if he were president.”
Bannon denied ever making that claim.
