It almost sounds like fiction with Donald Trump running against Barack Obama in a presidential race, but a new poll asked Americans who they would pick in 2028 and the results are clear. The problem is the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment, which blocks any president from serving more than two terms, so it could never legally happen.
Trump has been open about talking third term even though it is against the law. Back in April he was asked how he would feel about running against Obama and he said: “I’d love that. That would be a good one. I’d like that.”
He went on to say: “No people are asking me to run, and there’s a whole story about running for a third term. I don’t know. I never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that, but I have not looked into it. I want to do a fantastic job. We have four years… It’s still close to four years.”
Earlier this year he also told a reporter: “A lot of people want me to do it. But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration. I like working. I’m not joking, but I’m not… it is far too early to think about it. There are methods [through] which you could do it.”
The new numbers came from a survey of just over 1,000 registered voters. 52 percent said they would pick Barack Obama and 41 percent said they would back Donald Trump. Obama had major support from Hispanic and Black voters, at 73 percent and 68 percent. He was also the only Democrat in the poll who beat Trump because Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris both lost to him in the same testing.
Obama first won in 2008 and again in 2012. Trump pulled off his surprise victory in 2016, lost in 2020, and then came back in 2024, so they are the biggest political names of the last twenty years. They never faced off at the ballot box, and this poll is as close as it will ever get.
Trump has teased the idea of a third term several times, but for it to ever happen the Constitution would need to be changed. That would take two thirds approval in both the House and Senate plus 38 states signing on, which makes it almost impossible. As Trump said: “I’m not joking… there are methods.”
