JD Vance No Longer Lone 2028 GOP Frontrunner

Politics admin July 25, 2026 0 Comments

Vice President JD Vance’s path to the Oval Office may not be as clear as once thought.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has passed Vance on Kalshi as the favorite to win the 2028 presidential election—a massive surge from this time a year ago when he trailed the VP by 25 points.

Vance remains the slight favorite to win the GOP nomination on Kalshi, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trailing in a distant third, but Rubio is now the favorite to win the general election. His 16 percent chance narrowly edges Vance’s 15 percent. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is in third place at 11 percent.

Rubio, 55, and Vance, 41, have been circling each other for months as potential GOP successors to President Donald Trump, who has enjoyed keeping everyone guessing about who, if either, he plans to back.

According to White House sources who spoke to Axios this month, Trump has privately leaned toward Vance, but has stopped short of saying so publicly. Instead, the president has kept his options open, going as far as polling guests at a dinner in May about who they prefer.

Polling shows that Vance’s support has been shrinking in recent months.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten highlighted the narrowing gap between JD Vance and Marco Rubio in the GOP’s 2028 race. University of New Hampshire polling shows Vance’s lead over Rubio has collapsed from 46 points in February to just 10 points in July among GOP primary voters.

The vice president has also endured a bruising week of criticism from the online right, with backlash intensifying after his three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. His detractors have rallied around a “Never Vance” campaign, branding the vice president “unfit” to handle a potential peace deal with Iran.

Vance’s allies have moved quickly to dismiss the backlash as an “inauthentic,” coordinated attack from his enemies, but Rubio’s surge suggests the vice president may be facing a deeper problem.

GOP megadonor Ken Griffin, who ranked as the fifth-largest Republican donor in 2024, has already signaled he would back Rubio over Vance if the secretary of state runs in 2028.

The New York Times reported in May that there are growing tensions behind the scenes at the White House regarding Vance, with more than a dozen insiders saying the president has privately aired frustrations about the VP’s performance and political future.

Trump reportedly complained that the former Ohio senator had never won a difficult race without his backing, criticized the number of vacations Vance had taken, and questioned his decision to send Vance into negotiations in Pakistan aimed at ending the war in Iran.