As Vance locks down early 2028 support, would-be GOP rivals look for ways to stand out

Vice President JD Vance begins 2026 with a healthy head start toward the Republican presidential nomination that he is widely expected to seek in 2028.

Early polls show him with a commanding lead over would-be GOP rivals. Conservative activist Erika Kirk, who last year was named to head the influential Turning Point USA after the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk, has already endorsed him. President Donald Trump repeatedly identifies Vance, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as an heir apparent to his MAGA movement. And Rubio has repeatedly deferred to Vance, insisting that the 2028 nomination is his for the taking.

The latest nod toward Vance came Sunday, when another oft-mentioned Republican contender, outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, struck a similarly deferential tone.

“I agree with President Trump, I agree with Marco Rubio. I think Vice President Vance would be a great nominee,” Youngkin said in an interview with Fox News when asked if he himself was ruling out a campaign for president in the future.

But Vance’s advantages have not quieted speculation around a handful of other GOP prospects, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky. With the exception of Hawley, each has run for president before: Cruz and Paul (and Rubio) lost to Trump in the 2016 primaries, DeSantis lost to Trump in 2024.

They and others have staked out or reinforced positions seen by White House allies as, at best, opportunistic and oppositional to Trump and Vance and, at worst, purposely antagonistic. And they have homed in on thorny issues such as artificial intelligence and the Jeffrey Epstein files that can cause heartburn at the highest levels of the executive branch.

The question is whether any of their maneuverings make for a clear lane around Vance that can lead them to the nomination.

“Vance is the clear leader,” said a veteran strategist from Trump’s past campaigns, who like others was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the early contours of a potential 2028 primary fight. “The anti-Vance lane is mostly party elites hunting for defectors and pretending that’s a coalition. That didn’t work with Trump vs. DeSantis, and it won’t work here either unless Vance hands them the opening himself.”

Vance has sidestepped questions about 2028, telling NBC News in an interview last month that he would “never want the focus on the future to come at the expense of this job.” As the Republican National Committee’s finance chair, he is expected to raise money and campaign across the country for GOP candidates in this year’s midterm elections, the results of which will further clarify his standing in the party.

Those positioning themselves against Vance are doing so in ways that are unhelpful to the White House agenda and battle to retain control of Congress at a time of unified government, a person close to the vice president said.

“Broadly speaking, it’s just silly and early,” this person added, emphasizing that their critique did not extend to Rubio or any other Cabinet member who might be entertaining thoughts of a presidential bid. “The midterms haven’t happened yet and won’t for 11 months. A lot of these are just odd, parochial fixations that they have. And a lot of it seems to be driven by interest in getting media attention, much more so than paying attention to the task in front of them now.”

Cruz raising eyebrows and ‘friends’

Few have stirred as much speculation as Cruz has. In recent months he has clashed with the Trump administration over the nomination of a NASA administrator and over Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr’s threat to police remarks that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made about Kirk’s assassination.

Cruz also has invited contrasts with Vance by warning about a rise of antisemitism in the GOP. As examples, Cruz specifically has cited an interview that Vance ally Tucker Carlson conducted with Nick Fuentes, an activist known for espousing white supremacist views and praising Adolf Hitler, and anti-Israel questions from attendees at a Turning Point USA event that Vance headlined. Vance, for his part, told NBC News last month that he doesn’t think antisemitism is “exploding” on the right.

Each of the moves has irked White House officials who see them as an effort to undermine the vice president. Those close to Cruz have argued that his focus is more about his long-standing support for Israel and free speech and not intended to be a soft launch of a second presidential campaign.

But Cruz is starting to take steps to reactivate a national infrastructure beyond Texas. In Miami last week, he huddled with some of Florida’s political heavyweights at a gathering described as a “friendraiser,” a person familiar with the event said.

Hawley and Paul draw Trump’s ire

Hawley and Paul have also caught flak for splitting with Trump on key issues. They were among five Republicans who received “angry” calls from the president last week after they joined Democrats to advance a war powers resolution rebuking his use of force in Venezuela. Hawley and Paul also were the only two Republicans who joined with Senate Democrats in September in an early, unsuccessful effort to compel the Justice Department to release all the Epstein files.

Paul, known for his libertarian leanings, has long been a particularly prickly thorn in Trump’s side. Their frequent public disagreements led to tension around Paul’s invitation to an annual White House picnic, and he voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill — pressing Vance into service to cast the tie-breaking vote. In a speech Tuesday in Detroit, Trump referred to Paul’s votes against his agenda and called him a “stone cold loser.”

Paul also has attacked Vance directly, having chastised him for endorsing the use of military force to kill alleged Venezuelan drug cartel members

“JD ‘I don’t give a s---’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military,’” Paul wrote in a September post on X. “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

Hawley, who has downplayed the suggestion that he is planning a presidential bid, has been somewhat subtler with his contrasts, though his moves have occasionally drawn Trump’s ire.

“I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last year after Hawley joined with Democrats to advance a ban on congressional stock trading that expanded to include the president and vice president.

Hawley also has scrutinized and sought to regulate artificial intelligence. He has introduced bills seeking to require employers to disclose AI-related job losses, to ban AI chatbot companions for minors and to allow liability claims against AI companies. The White House, meanwhile, has enthusiastically championed the technology. Trump last month signed an executive order aiming to prevent states from regulating AI. And Vance has described robots on job sites as complementary to human labor rather than a threat to replace workers.

“I can’t speak to the administration, but Congress is giving the AI industry a big bear hug and a big wet kiss,” Hawley told NBC News last month when asked about the contrast. “And I think it’s gross and I think it’s dangerous.”

More recently, Hawley and his wife, Erin Morrow Hawley, launched an anti-abortion group that is planning a national ad campaign and has angered Trump advisers who see it as a move to compete with the anti-abortion Vance, Axios reported.

DeSantis, Part II?

If DeSantis, who split with Trump to launch an unsuccessful run for president in 2024, runs again in 2028, he would do so positioned in a much different place. Many of his previous top donors have rallied around Trump — and could stick with Vance, whom the president installed as the RNC finance chair.

“To some degree, I think he is hoping that Trump fatigue will set in,” said a former adviser to DeSantis’ presidential campaign. “He is going to be among those who are going to try and stake out the non-Vance lane, and you are already seeing that manifest itself.”

Like Hawley, DeSantis has issued warnings about AI. But the hints about DeSantis’ future are more evident in what he hasn’t said or done, the adviser said. DeSantis, this person noted, was relatively restrained this month in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. (DeSantis later raised the possibility of state charges in Florida against Maduro.) The former adviser also observed how DeSantis, known as a strong advocate for Israel, has shown less of an appetite for such advocacy as it becomes an animating issue on the far right.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “came to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president, he was not there,” this person said of DeSantis. “Five years ago Ron DeSantis would have been in South Florida for two days waiting for Netanyahu to get there.”

“That tells you he has a pulse on where a portion of the party is,” this person added. “He has always been good at not only reading where the party is today, but where it is going.”

A Vance-Rubio ticket?

Recent events could also shape the fortunes of several Cabinet members who might have interest in running in 2028.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been in the middle of executing Trump’s immigration and border policy, arguably one of the strengths of his return to office. She also, without evidence, quickly characterized the woman shot and killed last week in Minnesota by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer as a domestic terrorist — setting a tone that Trump, Vance and others high up in the administration soon followed. But the killing has become a flash point in the debate over how Trump has deployed federal law enforcement and the military to U.S. cities.

Then there’s Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser and wears other hats in the administration. He has become a face of the Venezuela operation, as well as other international entanglements that aren’t always popular with “America First” Trump backers, and is known for more hawkish foreign policy views than Vance holds.

Vance and Rubio aides have grown weary of the constant questions about a rivalry between the two — fueled in part by Trump suggesting that either of them could succeed him, or that they could form a ticket for 2028. Rubio has said he hopes Vance will run for president and that he would be a “great nominee” if he does.

“The success of the Trump-Vance administration on issues foreign and domestic,” a veteran Republican operative said, “will be the foundation that eventual Republican nominee JD Vance builds and improves on as the 48th President of the United States.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com