Bill Maher puts 2028 vote 'in play' for Vance, warns DSA is taking over the Democratic Party

A vote for Vice President JD Vance in 2028 is on the table for HBO host Bill Maher, who said Sunday he would cross party lines if Democrats nominate a candidate aligned with the party's socialist wing. Speaking on ABC News "This Week" with co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Maher answered directly when asked: "Yes. If this is the Democratic side, yes." The Democratic Socialists of America's 2026 platform is the specific document he named as his threshold.

Where Maher draws the line

Maher's reasoning starts with one hard constraint: Trump cannot run again in 2028, which removes what he described as his prior motivation to vote against the right regardless of what the left offered. From that position, he looked at the DSA platform and said he is not willing to dismiss what it actually says. The DSA's 2026 program calls for public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries. It also advocates fully abolishing police and prisons, and abolishing the Senate. Maher said he has read the platform "from their own mouths" and rejected the argument that socialism and communism are meaningfully different. He also drew a line at what he described as support for the Intifada. "When we're cheering for the Intifada, I cut, I'm out," he said.

The booking complaint

Democrats have declined his invitations to appear on "Real Time" while Republicans accepted them. Maher called his own party "cowardly" for avoiding venues where they might face criticism, saying he finds it strange that a party would ignore a voter who has reliably backed it. He said his views on the right have not changed. His friction is specifically with what he sees as his own side's refusal to defend its positions outside friendly rooms.

2026 midterms versus the 2028 setup

Maher separated the two cycles. He expects Democrats to perform well in the 2026 midterms because those contests will function as a referendum on Trump. The 2028 presidential race, he said, is a different story. By then, a wing of the party with real energy, including candidates in Colorado and Wisconsin calling for abolishing police and prisons outright, will have had more time to define what the party is offering nationally. Maher said he lost fans about 10 years ago for refusing to go along with the far left. He sees that dynamic returning at a larger scale.

The last position he named: the DSA's 2026 platform calling for abolition of the Senate.