Vice President JD Vance is doing everything a prospective presidential candidate does, promoting a book, negotiating with foreign leaders, raising money for the party, while insisting he hasn't given the 2028 race much thought. President Trump, meanwhile, refuses to settle the question everyone around him keeps asking: JD or Marco?
The result is a Republican succession contest that is already well underway even though nobody will admit it, shaped by a president who enjoys keeping his lieutenants competing and a vice president who knows that one wrong step could cost him the prize.
USA TODAY reported that Trump has been privately posing the "JD or Marco?" question to people around him for at least a year, in the Oval Office, at Mar-a-Lago, and at meetings with allies. Nearly a dozen sources close to the White House spoke to the outlet, most requesting anonymity. The picture they paint is of a president focused on one thing: who has the best chance of winning.
At a recent Rose Garden dinner with law enforcement officers, Trump turned the evening into an impromptu straw poll. He asked the crowd who liked Vance, then who liked Rubio, before offering what sounded like a preview of his preferred outcome.
"Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio? Alright, sounds like a good ticket."
Then came the caveat. "That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance," Trump told the room, according to C-SPAN video of the event.
That pattern, praise followed by a deliberate hedge, has defined Trump's handling of the succession question. On June 22, after Vance held a news conference from Switzerland tied to Iran peace negotiations, Trump told reporters he was impressed. "I thought JD Vance this morning was fantastic," Trump said, per a Roll Call/Factbase transcript. "He's a very smart guy. He did a great job." Five days earlier, Trump had quipped that if the Iran deal goes sideways, it would be Vance's fault.
The message to both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is clear enough: keep performing, keep delivering, and don't assume anything.
Vance has been building his public profile on multiple fronts. He traveled overseas to meet with Iranian leaders, served as the Republican National Committee's chief fundraiser, and appeared on "The View" in June, a move that impressed voters like Vicki Schwartz, a 70-year-old retired public school teacher from suburban Columbus, Ohio, who told USA TODAY she was thrilled to see him hold his own on hostile turf.
That kind of crossover appeal is part of what makes Vance's willingness to show up in unfriendly media territory noteworthy. He is not hiding in friendly venues. He is making the case directly, and some audiences that should reject him are listening.
His new book, "Communion," adds another layer. In it, Vance backs state-level bans on businesses being open on holidays like Thanksgiving so workers can spend time with their families. In a USA TODAY interview conducted in June, he said he supports the right of workers to privately unionize and bargain for higher wages, positions that would have been heresy in the pre-Trump GOP.
Asked about the apparent tension between economic populism and religious conservatism, Vance pushed back on the premise:
"I don't think economic populism is somehow inconsistent with religious conservatism. I would say the tradition of the Christian church is very supportive of a particular kind of economic populism."
That formulation, Catholic social teaching married to blue-collar economics, is Vance's bet on where the Republican base is headed. Whether it holds up under primary scrutiny is another question. But the positioning is deliberate, aimed at the same working-class voters who powered Trump's two victories.
Rubio has publicly said he wants to stay in his role as Secretary of State through the end of Trump's term and has indicated he won't run if Vance does. But one insider told USA TODAY that Rubio's actions tell a different story, particularly after Rubio took the White House podium in May in what appeared to be a visibility play.
Rubio brings a longer donor track record, more political experience, and deeper foreign policy credentials. He has also become one of Trump's most trusted advisers on international affairs, a position that keeps him in the president's orbit daily. A 2016 presidential contender, Rubio knows how to run a national campaign, even if his first attempt ended badly.
The polling, for now, shows a tight race between the two. An Emerson College survey released in May put Vance at 36 percent among Republican voters and Rubio at 35 percent, with a margin of error of 4.7 percentage points, a statistical tie. But other surveys paint a wider gap. A Center Square Voters' Voice Poll reported by Just The News in June showed Vance at 36 percent with Rubio well behind at 17 percent, followed by Ron DeSantis at 7 percent. That survey found Vance performing strongest among 18-to-29-year-olds and leading across all racial groups and education levels.
The gap between those two polls matters. If Rubio is truly within striking distance, this is a genuine two-man race. If the wider surveys are closer to reality, Vance already has a commanding lead that only a Trump endorsement of Rubio could overcome.
Then there is Ted Cruz. Three sources close to the White House told USA TODAY that the Texas senator is considering a run. Cruz declined to comment. He won the Iowa caucuses in 2016 and retains a network of evangelical and grassroots conservative supporters who never fully migrated to Vance.
As both Vance and Cruz have already been making visits to Iowa under the cover of midterm campaign stops, the early-state maneuvering is unmistakable. Fox News reported that Cruz recently delivered a keynote at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition, a classic 2028 signal dressed up as midterm outreach. One anonymous Trump political operative told Fox News that "Vice President Vance is the future of the Republican Party, and Marco Rubio is one of his closest friends in the administration," a framing that conveniently left Cruz out of the picture.
At Trump's June 24 rally on the National Mall, USA TODAY interviewed supporters who reflected the base's mixed feelings. Schwartz, the retired Ohio teacher, said she was torn. She read "Hillbilly Elegy," is two chapters into "Communion," and voted for Vance in his Senate race, the first person she voted for in Ohio. But she could not choose between Vance and Rubio without Trump's guidance.
"I kind of feel like they should flip a coin, and then whoever wins the coin flip, that one runs for president, or gets first choice."
Nasim Nabily, a 43-year-old business owner from Landover, Maryland, offered a more direct assessment of Vance's strengths. He's "not as hard-hitting as Trump, but he's a little more articulate," Nabily said. Logan Hottell, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate from Stanton, Virginia, said he was inclined to support Vance and wanted to learn more.
Paul Ayers, a 73-year-old retired real estate agent who flew in from Phoenix, was the most emphatic. "I think I'm going to go with Vance no matter what," Ayers said, meaning even without a Trump endorsement. But Ayers also noted a cautionary tale: Trump's pick for Iowa governor, Randy Feenstra, lost the Republican primary to a Turning Point USA-backed candidate. A Trump endorsement, in other words, is powerful but not infallible.
That observation cuts to the heart of the 2028 dynamic. Trump's endorsement will matter enormously, but the MAGA base is not a monolith that moves in lockstep with every presidential directive. Voters have their own instincts, and some of them are already making up their minds.
Vance, for his part, is playing the long game with discipline. Asked by USA TODAY whether he intended to run, he deflected.
"I don't think that you should be thinking so much about a job you could have years down the road when you're still a year and a half into the job the American people elected you to do."
When pressed on whether a decision needed to come by year's end, he said simply: "I just haven't really thought that much about it." He added that after the midterms, he would huddle with his wife Usha before making any announcement. His team, USA TODAY reported, has not done any polling or organizing in possible early states.
Republican strategist Matt Gorman argued that Vance can afford to wait. As vice president, Vance travels on Air Force Two and is exempt from a law restricting other officials' ability to engage in politics. "I don't expect, candidly, Trump to, the day after the midterms, anoint Vance," Gorman said. "Vance will go out, and he'll earn it."
GOP consultant Mike DuHaime, a former RNC political director, made a similar point: "By virtue of his official position, Vance is a major player without having to announce. He can wait longer than anyone else."
But waiting carries risks, too. The Washington Examiner noted that Vance led 21 hours of negotiations with Iran but failed to reach an agreement, with Tehran unwilling to abandon its nuclear weapons program. The Examiner drew historical parallels to other vice presidents who struggled to escape the political shadow of their presidents, pointing out that Trump's job approval sits at 41.4 percent and Vance's favorable rating is similar at 40.9 percent, both historically low for a vice president seeking higher office.
That is the bind every sitting vice president faces. You get credit for the administration's wins and blame for its failures, with limited ability to chart your own course. Vance was reportedly skeptical about starting the war with Iran in the first place, yet he was the one sent to negotiate its end. If the deal fails, Trump has already previewed who takes the fall.
While Republicans sort out their succession, Democrats face their own identity crisis. A Breitbart-reported poll showed Kamala Harris leading the Democratic field at 37 percent, with potential competition from figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gavin Newsom. The same poll had Vance at 38 percent on the Republican side.
The left's internal struggles are real and growing. Union leaders have warned that blue-collar workers are walking away from a Democratic Party increasingly captured by its progressive wing, precisely the voters Vance is positioning himself to absorb with his economic populism and working-class biography.
If Democrats nominate Harris or someone further left, Vance's blend of cultural conservatism and worker-friendly economics could prove formidable in a general election. That is the implicit argument behind everything Vance is doing right now, not just that he can win a Republican primary, but that he can hold the Trump coalition together and expand it.
The 2028 Republican primary will ultimately turn on one man's judgment. Trump has shown he enjoys the competition between Vance and Rubio, and he has every incentive to let it play out. A contested field keeps both men performing at their best and keeps Trump at the center of the action.
Vance's task is straightforward but not easy: prove to Trump that he is the strongest horse, prove to the base that he has earned the role on his own merits, and prove to a general electorate that MAGA governance can outlast the man who created it.
In American politics, the heir apparent rarely coasts. He runs.
