Actor George Clooney and statistician Nate Silver have revealed who they believe will be the Democratic nominee in 2028.

Clooney said during an interview with CNN Wednesday that he backs Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who he hailed as a “proper leader” for his handling of the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse last year. Silver, meanwhile, predicts that progressive New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be the Democratic pick, citing her high polling numbers.

Silver shared his thoughts on his Silver Bulletin newsletter Wednesday alongside former FiveThirtyEight podcast host Galen Druke, who also chose the New York progressive as his top pick.

“I think there’s a lot of points in her favor at this very moment,” Druke noted. “In a Yale poll just out this week, AOC has the highest net favorability rating of any of the Democrats that they asked about.”

Druke went on to say that Ocasio-Cortez “has broad appeal across the Democratic Party and there’s a lot of people who could potentially get on board with her.”

He added that it’s “equally important” that she has “very fervent support.”

“I think a lot of people are gonna run in 2028, and it’s going to be a contest for attention and getting those sort of people who might be in your boat to turn out and stay with you through thick and thin, and I think that’s Ocasio-Cortez,” said Druke. “The media is kind of obsessed with her, and they’re going to follow her every move, which means she will be able to keep the attention on her throughout the primary process.”

“I agree with everything,” said Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight. “She was going to be my first pick…Because of some of the polling; because she has this kind of progressive lane, probably not to herself; because she is younger and media savvy. I mean, look, in polls, if she were to try to primary Chuck Schumer, she is now ahead in those polls, and New York Democrats are actually a pretty moderate bloc.”

But the statistician noted that he wasn’t sure she would even mount a campaign.

“I think she’s gonna run,” Druke countered. “If you’ve been following her moves in terms of her ‘Fight Oligarchy’ tour, in terms of the kind of content she’s putting out on social media.”

Druke argued that “she has learned a lot as a politician since those early days of opposing Amazon, and especially those early days of the ‘Abolish ICE’ stuff that was very unpopular ultimately.”

He noted that Ocasio-Cortez’s message today is “all about the economy” as she bashes Trump for his “most obvious weakness” – “the number of billionaires in his cabinet.”

Druke argued that Trump is “serving people who are ultimately not the median voter in America.”

“I think one advantage which she has in a Democratic primary is that, as a woman of color, she’s not forced to talk about identity all the time because she’s sort of self-evidently different from any of the … white guys running, and she doesn’t have to prove her bona fides there,” he added. “At the same time, I think progressives have learned [to] stick to the economic message because what you have to say about those social and cultural state of affairs in America broadly isn’t popular, and I think she knows that.”

Both Druke and Silver picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as their second-most likely nominee, with Druke going for former Vice President Kamala Harris for his third choice, while Silver went for New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

Elsewhere, almost a year after helping to get former President Joe Biden out of the 2024 race with his New York Times op-ed, Clooney appeared on CNN on Wednesday, where he backed Moore.

He also mentioned Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

“I’m a Kentucky guy, I like him, he’s a good guy…And he’s won in a red state,” said the actor, before going on to also point to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

“But who I think is who I think is levitating above that is Wes Moore,” he said of the Maryland governor.

“I think he is the guy [who] has handled this tragedy in Baltimore beautifully,” he said in reference to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26 last year. “He has two tours of duty in Afghanistan, active duty. He speaks sort of beautifully. He’s smart. He ran a hedge fund. He ran the Robin Hood Foundation. He’s a proper leader.”

“We say Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. Although I think Republicans have fallen in love a little bit [with Trump],” Clooney added.

“I like him a lot,” Clooney said of Moore. “I think he could be someone we could all join in behind. We have to find somebody rather soon [because the Republicans are] running through government and doing their thing. So it’s our job now to put together a proper team to stand up because we’re right now polling very poorly.”