As JD Vance neared the end of his Iowa debut as vice president Tuesday — a state more freighted with presidential expectations than any other — he felt compelled to recount one last emotional story.
Mr. Vance had just met two Gold Star families of fallen service members at the Des Moines airport, including one whose son had died earlier this year in the Iran war.
“They told me,” Mr. Vance said of the parents, “that their son’s birthday was today.”
Photos show Mr. Vance’s own son, 6, clinging to his father’s hand as he spoke to the families on the tarmac. Mr. Vance later told the crowd that he had looked into his son’s eyes on the drive from the airport — they “remind me of his mother’s eyes,” he said — and pondered what he would say “if this beautiful 6-year-old boy got older and decided, like his dad, to put on the uniform of his country.”
“On the one hand, I’d be so proud of him, I’d be so proud of him,” Mr. Vance said. “On the other hand, I’d be so terrified that what happened to those two families would happen to this boy.”
For Mr. Vance, a former Marine who served in Iraq, the war in Iran highlights the bind he is in as he considers a future presidential bid, pulled between the unpopularity of the conflict — and his own initial skepticism about it — and his role as loyal lieutenant to President Trump.
The vice president’s team believes that his political fortunes are inextricably linked to his boss. In polls, he is the front-runner for the next presidential nomination in large part because he is Mr. Trump’s No. 2. Yet he may have to carry the baggage of a president with whom he campaigned explicitly on avoiding “forever” foreign wars.
The Vance trip on Tuesday to Iowa, whose caucuses will kick off the 2028 nominating contest, was billed as an effort to lift a vulnerable House Republican, Representative Zach Nunn.
But it was also a chance for Mr. Vance to woo influential Iowans. Backstage, the vice president posed for photos and held a series of brief private meetings with key Iowa political players, including Jeff Kaufmann, the longtime state party chairman, the influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and the conservative talk show host Steve Deace.
“Obviously we all know that the vice president — I mean, just common sense would tell you that he’s going to be looking at the presidency,” Mr. Kaufmann said, noting that Mr. Vance’s team had been “very good about keeping me in the loop.”
Mr. Vance’s speech was not flawless. Without a teleprompter, he lost track of his notes — “I’m on the wrong page here,” he said at one point. At others, he fluently nodded at local issues, such as “fighting” to blend ethanol into gas.
Mr. Deace came away impressed. “We had a very candid conversation, so I will keep it between us,” he said, noting that it was his second in-person meeting with the vice president. “I’ve never supported Trump in a primary,” he added, but Mr. Vance is “the leader in the clubhouse for me” in 2028.
Yet the Iran war’s unpopularity is darkening the political climate for Republicans right now. A recent Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll showed the conflict to be as unpopular now as the Vietnam War was in the 1970s and the Iraq War was in 2006.
Only 19 percent of the adults surveyed said the use of military force had been successful so far, including only 46 percent of Republicans, though an equal share said it was too soon to tell.
The midterms may still be six months away, but the time for Mr. Vance to begin laying the groundwork for a 2028 bid is not far off.
Mr. Trump announced his 2024 run right after the 2022 midterms — almost two full years ahead of the election. Mr. Trump’s team believes that his main rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, made a grave error by delaying until the spring of 2023 to enter the race.
“The midterms in general are about 2028, especially as it relates to Vice President Vance,” said Mr. Vander Plaats, who is deeply involved in conservative politics in the state. “Because if the midterms go well — we keep the House, we keep the Senate, we keep legislatures — that is going to bode very well for JD.”
Many in the Republican Party are eager for an ideological fight over MAGA’s future, the type of full-throated disagreements about spending and foreign policy that Mr. Trump’s last two campaigns largely suppressed.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and Mr. Vance’s most-discussed potential rival, has publicly suggested he would defer to Mr. Vance. “I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” he said last year. Still, on Wednesday, Mr. Rubio issued a campaign-style video on X celebrating the country’s 250th birthday. The score of the video was a Hans Zimmer soundtrack from “Man of Steel,” a Superman movie.
At Mr. Vance’s Iowa event, multiple Republican voters volunteered their interest in Mr. Rubio.
“I think Vance is great, but I think Rubio would be great, too,” said Duane Lawrence, a 62-year-old retiree, who was wearing a shirt that said “ICE ICE baby” on the back.
“Marco Rubio’s a great alternative — I like them both extremely well,” said Jim Edmonson, 68, a retiree from the lumber industry.
“I’ll be honest with you,” said Merle Miller, 67, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Between JD Vance and Marco Rubio, I love Marco Rubio. JD Vance, Marco Rubio would be a phenomenal team.”
It has not been the smoothest of sailing for Mr. Vance of late.
He campaigned in Hungary for Viktor Orban, the conservative prime minister, days before he went down in defeat. He traveled to Pakistan for peace talks with Iran and came back without a deal. He defended the president’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV even as he prepared to publish a book about his spiritual journey to Catholicism.
Still, early polls place Mr. Vance as the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, even as the vice president remains unpopular with the broader electorate. His approval rating measured just 35 percent in the most recent Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll — and disapproval stood at 48 percent.
Unlike other cabinet officials, Mr. Vance can run for president while keeping his day job.
Some potential 2028 candidates are willing to be seen as contenders. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas came to Iowa last Friday, appearing at a Christian conservative gathering in the state where he carried the caucuses over Mr. Trump a decade ago.
Mr. Vance has so far avoided expanding his political operation, instead leaning into his role as the finance chairman of Republican National Committee. The post allows him to court the richest Republican financiers in the nation to help the party, people who could provide financial backing for a White House run.
Mr. Vance still mostly relies on the small set of advisers who have surrounded him throughout his rise in Republican politics. Only four years ago, he won his first election, a crowded and contested Ohio primary for Senate.
That team is doing other work in the midterm elections that could yield insightful data and experience for the vice president’s operation — including in Iowa. Luke Thompson, one of Mr. Vance’s closest confidants, is a consultant for Zach Lahn, a businessman making a self-funded outsider bid for Iowa governor. At least one of Mr. Lahn’s polls queries Iowans about their opinions of Mr. Vance, according to two people with knowledge of the survey who were granted anonymity to discuss a private document.
Mr. Trump has acknowledged that Mr. Vance “was maybe less enthusiastic about going” into Iran, but once the decision was made, the vice president embraced his role as Mr. Trump’s unflinching ally, framing his support for the mission around his belief in the president.
On Tuesday, Mr. Vance said the deaths in the conflict only added to the nation’s collective burden. “We have to make this country worthy of that sacrifice,” he said.
Some of Mr. Vance’s allies have complicated matters for Mr. Vance by highlighting his disagreements with Mr. Trump. Tucker Carlson, the influential former Fox News host, has apologized for his role in helping elect Mr. Trump a second time, while singing Mr. Vance’s praises and accusing those around Mr. Rubio of “treachery.”
“He’s in a tough spot,” Mr. Carlson said of Mr. Vance recently on “The Interview,” a New York Times show. “He’s on the record repeatedly saying this is exactly the thing that this administration would avoid doing, and now they’ve done it.”
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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