CNN: Vance Might Not Run in ’28. Veep Leads Rubio, DeSantis in RCP Poll Average
Vice President JD Vance might not run for president in 2028, insiders say, leaving the Republican field open for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and other candidates.
CNN disclosed the possibility today that the vice president might drop out.
Vance leads the Real Clear Politics average of polls for the GOP nomination by more than 10 points. His closest contender is Rubio. DeSantis is a distant third.
Other possible candidates are GOP Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and even Tucker Carlson, should he return to the GOP.
Privately “Less Certain”
CNN’s takeout appeared a little more than a week after the midterm elections crushed the GOP and sent Democrats to Capitol Hill from traditionally solid red states. Vance blamed the war for the loss.
It also followed Trump’s booting Vance out of negotiations to end the war with Iran. “We won’t need a deal with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Vance will handle Democrat corruption, Trump said.
“While Vance has yet to make up his mind, interviews with roughly a dozen allies and advisers reveal a vice president wrestling with his political ambitions, the fracturing of the MAGA coalition and the demands of fatherhood,” CNN reported:
They described him as deeply committed to rebuilding the movement that won in 2024 but uncertain over whether he should be the one to lead it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised by any decision he makes,” one of those people said. “He’s only 42. He’s young enough that he can have a comeback should this environment make success impossible. It just may not be his time.”
Still, the network explained, Vance’s “allies” insist that Trump’s No. 2 will run.
But Vance is “less certain” in conversations with those close to him, CNN continued:
People close to him insist he entered the year uncommitted, and the arrival of his fourth child this summer had already fueled speculation inside the White House that he might put his presidential ambitions on hold.
More recently, though, his deliberations have centered on a fundamental question: Can he — or any Republican — win in the political climate Trump has created?
Looming over those calculations is the war with Iran, which allies see as perhaps the greatest obstacle to Vance’s presidential ambitions. Much may depend on whether Trump can bring the unpopular conflict to a swift conclusion without further eroding the public’s trust in the White House.
“The question isn’t if JD can do it. It’s: If the Iran war is still happening, can any Republican do it?” a Vance ally said. “If they don’t end the war in Iran, no Republican has a shot at 2028.”
Vance firmly declared on X that Trump’s waging war on Iran, after repeated promises not to start a foreign war, caused the GOP disaster. The post nearly sounded like a divorce from Trump. A pollster asked Trump voters who fled the MAGA coalition how Trump and Vance could get them to return, Vance wrote.
Answers: Return to America First, end Trump’s war on behalf of Israel, “change our relationship” to that country, and cut the cost of living and control inflation.
Vance wrote that MAGA voters “showed up” — to vote for Democrats.
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote:
The president himself said so last night.…
[E]veryone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
Trump admitted that Vance was right, first to reporters, then to CBS’s 60 Minutes. Donald Trump, Jr. said likewise.
Perhaps the election and Trump’s removing Vance from the Iran peace talks alienated the vice president, who opposed the war from the start. That might explain the chin-wagging about his not running.
Republicans Move to Join Race
Vance’s “fiercest allies” say the election didn’t much shake the veep, and that he has two years to rebuild his brand.
While “other Republicans — smelling blood in the water — have already made moves to seize the 2028 spotlight, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp,” CNN explained “Vance’s allies insist they are unbothered by the emerging competition, noting that a divided Republican field helped Trump secure the nomination in 2016 and 2024.”
As well, far-left Democrats are ascendant on Capitol Hill, “‘something we can use to our advantage,’ one Vance ally said, adding that a lot can change in the span of two years,” CNN reported:
“Just look at how far Trump has fallen since his win.”
But Rich Baris, a pollster closely connected to the MAGA movement, said the damage runs deeper than ordinary voter frustration. Many Trump supporters, he added, feel betrayed by Trump’s failure to make life more affordable and his broken promise not to start new foreign wars.
Baris argued Vance remains the Republican best positioned to pick up the pieces, but it may require him to forge a new populist coalition.
“MAGA is dead,” Baris said. “The problem the vice president is going to have is that he has to motivate [MAGA voters] and make them believe again, because the Republican brand has completely lost credibility with them.”
EMBED GOP Primary Polls
The RCP average of polls on the 2028 Republican nomination has Vance ahead of Rubio, 37.6 percent to 27.1. DeSantis is a distant third with 9.3 percent support among those surveyed.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is polling ahead of Ted Cruz.
Carlson, who bolted the party in June because of its slavish support for Israel and after Trump began the war against Iran, is polling at 1.7 percent.
