Who is going to lead the Republican Party after President Donald Trump? “I’d love to run,” Trump said this week of running for an unconstitutional third term. “But the law is very strong.”
A succession fight is brewing over who inherits his MAGA movement, and it’s an open question whether any Republican can build a campaign by breaking away from it.
Here is how the early field is taking shape for the 2028 Republican primaries. This is our fourth round of ranking. We also regularly rank Democrats. Trump is unpopular nationally but has strong support within his party, and whomever he endorses would have an immediate head start.
The standouts
Vice President JD Vance: Vance is the obvious heir apparent. He has hewed closely to Trump and is taking on high-profile jobs in the administration: Vance negotiated a nascent peace deal with Iran this summer (it ultimately fell apart) and is leading a task force to crack down on fraud in federal benefits.
“I would vote for JD Vance in a heartbeat,” said Kathy Bernier, vice chair of the Chippewa County Republican Party in Wisconsin. “He’s now experienced all there is to experience on foreign affairs; he’s delved in and is not a sit-by, do-nothing vice president.”
With more visibility has come more detractors, such as some pro-Israel donors as well as a hyper-online contingent on the right that has been criticizing his role in the Iran war. “Well, go to hell,” he told his detractors. (Vance frequently curses at his critics.)
He’s also been more accepting of the MAGA white nationalist wing of the party than perhaps any other potential contender, asserting that America is a Christian nation, refusing to forcefully criticize the elevation of some neo-Nazi forces in the party and celebrating that under the Trump administration, “you don’t have to apologize for being White anymore.”
Vance’s fourth child was born this summer, and he is expected to make a decision on running soon. He’s certainly making moves toward it: He has got a new book out about finding Catholicism, and he’s keeping close relationships with state party officials key to Republican nominating contests. Trump hasn’t endorsed Vance, but he’s thinking about it. He has privately told donors he would back Vance, but he has publicly left his options open.
But Republican insiders are watching Vance’s fortunes alongside what happens to their party in November’s midterm elections. If Democrats have a wave year, winning both chambers of Congress, governor’s mansions and state legislatures, it could lower Vance’s presidential stock, given how tied he is to what would be an undeniably unpopular administration.
“If it’s a complete blowout in November for Republicans, then that really hurts JD Vance and helps Marco Rubio,” said Dennis Lennox, a Michigan-based Republican strategist.
Marco Rubio: Trump’s secretary of state has said he’ll support Vance if Vance runs. And Rubio is certainly busy managing massive tasks from which he’d probably have to step back to run for president: He’s also Trump’s national security adviser and the effective head of Venezuela.
But the breadth of his portfolio only makes him more attractive to some establishment Republicans. “It’s hard not to see a scenario in which Marco Rubio is a serious contender if he runs,” Lennox said. “It’s not just that he’s in a position to stop Vance; it’s that he has run before and has shown he can competently handle an immense workload.”
But Rubio’s natural approach to politics is more of a traditional conservative than MAGA. Some Republican insiders think there’s a lane for that; others don’t see the party quitting Trump’s MAGA movement quite so easily.
The middle of the pack
A number of Republican senators: “There’s no one else but Vance and Rubio,” asserted Stan Barnes, an Arizona Republican strategist. But if both didn’t run, their campaigns fell apart, or a combination of the two possibilities, several Republican senators might emerge from the wings.
Ted Cruz of Texas appears to be positioning himself as an alternative to Vance specifically. While Vance says all views in the party should be welcome, Cruz is advocating for his party to ostracize MAGA pundit Tucker Carlson for interviewing a white nationalist who said Adolf Hitler is “cool.” Behind closed doors, Cruz has said Vance’s foreign policy views are dangerously isolationist. He’s pushing a college-sports-regulation bill and has said Trump should arm Iranian protesters.
Josh Hawley of Missouri, another potential candidate, has spoken out against his party’s cuts to Medicaid, which could hurt rural hospitals; voted to limit Trump’s fighting in Venezuela; opposed cryptocurrency legislation widely seen as friendly to the industry; and emerged as a leading GOP voice against data centers.
Tom Cotton of Arkansas is as conservative as they come and was vetted as a vice-presidential pick for Trump. He recently opposed a House-passed bill to eliminate daylight saving time.
Current or former Republican governors: Ron DeSantis, Florida’s fiery, socially conservative governor, ran for president against Trump in the 2024 primaries and remains a fixture on Fox News and at conservative events. He can tout running a big state and winning reelection by a large margin, but his term as governor ends in 2027, so he would have to build momentum for a presidential run while out of public office.
Former Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin is helping fellow Republicans campaign for governor in swing states. He recently launched a group to push school choice, building off his win in Virginia five years ago, which was tied to some parental anger over a lack of control over their children’s education during the covid-19 pandemic.
Pete Hegseth: Trump’s defense secretary has remained in his post despite controversy after controversy. He’s a leading figure in Trump’s unpopular conflict with Iran and is popular on the far right for his unapologetic evangelicalism mixed with attacks on liberals. “We don’t trust in woke,” he has said. “We trust in God.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Trump’s health secretary remains perennially in the news, specifically for his attempts to dramatically remake vaccine policy in a way that health experts worry will leave kids vulnerable to diseases. (A court has stopped his changes, though Trump just signed an executive order reissuing many of them.) Kennedy is also working on his arguably more popular idea: to get chemicals out of food supplies.
Donald Trump Jr.: Trump’s eldest son has never held public office, but he is an adviser and confidant to his father. He seems to be making the case that he’s the rightful heir to the MAGA throne, speaking in the fall of his desire to run: “That calling is there.”
Republicans who might run as alternatives to Trumpism: In his previous White House runs, Trump has had at least one opponent framing themselves as the alternative to MAGA. With Trump off the ballot, there could be more room for candidates to make a run at Republican voters, particularly moderate ones, who want less MAGA in the White House.
Republican insiders mention Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who took on Trump in 2020 over election fraud lies and is deeply conservative; Nikki Haley, a former Trump administration official who was widely seen as the last non-Trump candidate left standing in 2024; Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) who recently said he’ll consider running to counter economic populism; and outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, whom Trump helped to oust from Congress in a primary after his push to release the Epstein files.
The dark horses
Tucker Carlson or another media celebrity: The former Fox News host has done the unthinkable: effectively broken from Trump and kept a media following (so far). This spring, Carlson said he was “sorry for misleading people” about Trump. The Iran war seemed to be the breaking point, though there were many fissures leading up to it.
“I think the Iran war sets up Tucker, especially if the war goes badly, really well to run for president in ’28,” journalist Jason Zengerle, who has written a recent biography of Carlson, said in an interview with Poynter. “He can hang that war around JD Vance’s neck, around Marco Rubio’s neck. … And he can say: ‘I was against this from the start. I’m the true heir for MAGA.’”
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