As the dust settles on a barnstorming night, the Democrats have turned their eyes to 2028 and their next target: the White House.

Donald Trump faces an uphill battle in his final two years in office, after Democrats seized both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterms While the Republican machinations may have begun – with JD Vance publicly breaking with Donald Trump– the Democratic ticket remains wide open. Here are the five Democrats who could be making presidential moves.

Jon Ossoff, who was re-elected in Georgia, has been labelled ‘the next Barack Obama’ Credit Getty/Megan Varner Jon Ossoff – senator, Georgia Perhaps one of the most talked about 2028 candidates is Jon Ossoff.

The charm of the Georgia senator has led some to call him“the next Barack Obama” For his part, the former president has said he could be mistaken as a member of the Kennedy dynasty.

Mr Ossoff has been in office since 2021, when he narrowly beat the Republican incumbent in a race overshadowed by Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud.

His re-election on Tuesday night was expected, but given the manner of his emphatic victory, you would be forgiven for forgetting that Georgia is a purple state: his race was one of the first to be called, not long after polls closed.

Mr Ossoff kickstarted a media whirlwind in Washington DC earlier this year when he skewered the relationship between Mr Trump and his devoted aide, Natalie Harp on the campaign trail.

Mr Trump didn’t want to be president, Mr Ossoff told his supporters at a rally in August, “he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie”.

At just 39, Mr Ossoff will have plenty of opportunities to decide when is the right time to throw his hat into the ring for a possible presidential run – whether that’s in 2028 or beyond.

During his senate campaign, he said he had “zero interest” in running for president. But his dominant performance at the midterms could change that.

Keisha Lance Bottoms (right) became the first black woman governor in US history when she won in Georgia Keisha Lance Bottoms – governor, Georgia His running mate in Georgia could turn out to be another winner.

Keisha Lance Bottoms was among a number of firsts in a historical night in US politics – she became the first black woman to be elected a state governor.

Ms Bottoms, the former mayor of Georgia’s largest city, Atlanta, beat billionaire Republican businessman Rick Jackson who pumped his own money into his campaign.

The $100m (£74m) Mr Jackson reportedly spent wasn’t enough to keep the Georgia governor’s office under the control of the GOP.

Ms Bottoms, 56, enjoyed the support of Mr Ossoff and Mr Obama on the campaign trail, successfully tying her opponent to the president and saying he wanted to be “Trump’s favourite governor.”She was tipped as a possible running mate for Joe Biden in 2020 and then reportedly declined a position in his cabinet later that year.

Her rising star within the party made her decision not to seek re-election as Atlanta mayor in 2022 all the more surprising.

At the time, she chalked it up to the challenges she had faced during the pandemic and the protests following the killing of George Floyd“The last three years have not been at all what I would have scripted for our city,” she said in 2022. “It is abundantly clear to me today that it is time to pass the baton on to someone else.”Abdul El-Sayed, who won in Michigan to become the US’s first Muslim senator, ran a fiery campaign AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson Abdul El-Sayed – senator, Michigan Like Ms Bottoms, Abdul El-Sayed made history on Tuesday night, too. He became the first Muslim senator after winning his race in Michigan and keeping his seat blue.

If Democrats are sometimes considered too nice to take the fight to Mr Trump’s combative Maga Republicans, that certainly could not be said of Dr El-Sayed.

As the polls closed in Michigan, Dr El-Sayed took some time out of the hubbub of a busy election night to approach Sky News correspondent James Matthews“I don’t care what you think or the questions you ask,” he told the reporter.

It was just the type of fiery exchange that characterised his campaign, which was attacked by Mr Trump and Republicans, particularly over his pro-Palestinian views.

feud with Haley Stevens a Democrat who ran against Dr El-Sayed in the primaries, ultimately ended with her remarkably endorsing the Republican candidate in the closing days of the campaign.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump repeatedly referred to Dr El-Sayed as a “jihadist” and said Congress would have to “get a special metal detector for Abdul”.

A gleeful Dr El-Sayed was quick to call out the president following his victory on Tuesday night: “Donald, look, I know you struggled with my name, so after JD swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me senator,” he said.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left), a 37-year-old New York congresswoman, has become an influential voice on the Left AP/Jae C. Hong Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – representative, New York The New York representative known as AOC was once a thorn in the side of establishment Democrats.

But in the nearly eight years Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been in Washington, she has become something of a grandee on the progressive wing of the party, reportedly helping build bridges between the democratic socialists and DC’s more moderate politicos (she strongly backed Dr El-Sayed in Michigan). It is hard to believe that the young Democrat from New York is still only 37.

Her House seat was never in doubt on Tuesday night and she seemed to spend as much time throwing her weight behind liberal Democratic hopefuls across the country as she did campaigning for herself.

Rumours about a 2028 presidential bid have been swirling for a while. And perhaps her efforts to appeal to more centrist parts of the party are signs of her laying the groundwork for a run at the White House.

She has even reportedly been meeting in recent months with key influencers in the Make America Healthy Again movement as part of a bid to try to steal some of the independents who voted for Mr Trump after Robert F Kennedy Jr endorsed him in 2024.

But she has not yet formally announced that she will run, with some observers thinking she might have an eye on fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer’s seat in the Senate.

James Talarico’s win in Texas turned the ‘blue wave’ into a tsunami for the Democrats Getty/Brandon Bell James Talarico – senator, Texas One of the most stunning results of the night came around 11pm ET, when James Talarico was declared the winner in Texas The polls had suggested it would be a tight race. And history was against Mr Talarico – Texas had not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since the 1980s.

But in the end, it wasn’t even close. More than a million votes clear of his Republican rival Ken Paxton, Mr Talarico had an unassailable lead before the day was even done.

If Mr Ossoff was the face of the early signs of a possible “blue wave” sweeping the nation, Mr Talarico’s win confirmed that the Democrats were heading for a “blue tsunami”.

Mr Talarico rebuffed criticism of his stance on issues such as gender immigration“We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love,” the former schoolteacher and seminarian said during his victory speech.

Mr Talarico first ran for office in his late 20s, when he launched a campaign in 2018 to become a state house representative. He walked 25 miles in a single day, knocking on doors in his district and hosting town halls. Exhausted, he was later taken to hospital and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

But his efforts proved successful, flipping the seat from red to blue – just as he did on Tuesday night. Once in office, he helped lead a bill capping the price of insulin.

Like Mr Ossoff, the Texan senator-elect has a long political career ahead of him. At just 37, he joins a growing group of young Democrats now attracting attention on the national stage.

If, or when, he does decide to make a bid for the White House, he can count one particularly influential voice among his supporters: last year, during an appearance on his show, the popular podcaster Joe Rogan– who endorsed Mr Trump in 2024 – urged him to run.

“You talk to him and he’s just one of these guys who loves people and wants to serve them,” Amanda Litman, who worked with Mr Talarico during his 2018 campaign, told The Telegraph earlier this year.

Asked whether he could one day be US president, she said: “He could do whatever he wants in his political career.”