There is a growing trend toward underrating Vice President JD Vance’s chances of winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination after months where he was the consensus pick.
President Donald Trump has reportedly perked up his interest in Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an alternative, for whom selling the Iran war is a more comfortable fit than for Vance. If Trump remains unpopular, some Republicans don’t want a repeat of the Democrats’ failed attempt to pass the baton from then-President Joe Biden to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. There are even reports that Vance, whose wife Usha is expecting their fourth child, is undecided about whether to run for president in the next election.
Every bad donor interaction or Vance joke that doesn’t land or a controversial podcaster comment he doesn’t denounce becomes magnified.
It’s true: the Iran war scrambles Republican electoral prospects this year and beyond; the mercurial Trump will be reluctant to cede the spotlight and will matter a great deal in the 2028 primaries; Vance’s family situation could dissuade him from a grueling presidential race where he will be under fire from all directions.
“I remember when we decided to run for vice president, I said, ‘Honey, I really want to have a fourth kid.’ And she said, ‘Well, you can become vice president, or you can have a fourth baby,’” Vance quipped during a speech in Michigan last week. “But, ladies and gentlemen, I am persuasive because I got both!”
Perhaps Vance’s persuasion will prevail once again. Despite his loss of ground in the prediction markets, he is still the sitting vice president under a president who is constitutionally ineligible to run in 2028. He is also the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, giving him unprecedented access to donors and the GOP money machine, and he will be a bigger presence on the campaign trail this fall than anyone in the administration other than Trump himself.
Vance is a heavy favorite in the polls, beating Rubio by 29.1 points in the RealClearPolitics average. That’s only a little less than Trump’s lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in mid-July 2023. Surveys for the Daily Mail and Emerson College have Vance breaking 50% nationally. “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Vanity Fair last year.
These polls frequently include Donald Trump Jr., who takes anywhere from 9% to 27% of the vote. The president’s son was a big booster of Vance for vice president in 2024. “I exerted 10,000% of my political capital,” he told Tucker Carlson, who is also included in some of the 2028 polls, on election night. “I may get a favor from my father in like, 2076. I used it all.”
It’s possible that, if anything, the polls are underestimating Vance’s support.
If the economy recovers and the international situation stabilizes, Vance will be better positioned than anyone else to inherit the windfall. If the outlook on one or both fronts remains dire, any other Republican who runs in 2028 will face the same headwinds.
Iran has actually shown that Vance can manage some daylight with Trump while remaining a team player and in the president’s good graces. That won’t necessarily shield Vance from political consequences if the war goes awry or lasts longer than expected. The vice president himself has vowed, “I said this before the conflict started, I’ll repeat it again. There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective.”
But if Vance turns out to be right, he can benefit politically.
If the Iran war is still a top issue heading into 2028, it is not clear that it will benefit Rubio any more than Vance, even if the immediate political impact of Operation Epic Fury has been more favorable to the secretary of state. Republicans’ best alternative in that case might be someone from outside the administration entirely, much as Democrats probably wish they went with one of their Rust Belt governors rather than replacing Biden with Harris.
That’s the bigger problem with the Vance vs. Rubio stories, aside from the fact that both men have repeatedly downplayed this dynamic: Other than a scandal or Trump siding against his vice president, there is no obvious set of circumstances where political conditions get bad enough to make Vance vulnerable in a primary but good enough for Rubio to be favored in a general election.
We have been through this before. When Trump picked Vance as his running mate, the choice was greeted with head-scratching outside of certain factions of the GOP. Democrats were confident Vance was too “weird.” They circulated his podcast comments about childless cat ladies. They expected Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to best him in their debate.
VANCE ASKS NORTH CAROLINA TO PRAY FOR THE TROOPS, BUT DOESN’T DENY CAUTIONING TRUMP AGAINST IRAN WAR
Instead, Vance won the vice presidential debate in the most one-sided fashion of any since Ross Perot’s running mate James Stockdale wandered on to the stage. Vance similarly dominated in hostile media interviews, prompting rapper Nicki Minaj to label him an “assassin” in a comment she instantly regretted making to Erika Kirk. Vance proved himself an asset on the campaign trail.
History won’t necessarily repeat itself, and a lot is outside Vance’s control. But he is probably being underestimated right now.
