Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
US vice-president JD Vance remains the top choice among conservative voters to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2028 but faces a growing threat from secretary of state Marco Rubio, according to a straw poll of activists at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
The CPAC straw poll found Vance had the support of 53 per cent of conference attendees, with 35 per cent backing Rubio. All other prospective candidates — including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Texas senator Ted Cruz, defence secretary Pete Hegseth and the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, trailed significantly with single-digit support.
The survey marks the second year in a row that Vance, the 41-year-old former senator from Ohio who rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, came out on top of the CPAC straw poll.
But this year’s results suggested waning support for the vice-president and a sharp rise for Rubio, who has taken on an increasingly central role in the Trump administration as a key architect of the president’s interventionist foreign policy agenda, including the Iran war.
Last year, Vance won the straw poll with 61 per cent support of conference attendees, while Rubio came in a distant fourth, with the backing of just 3 per cent of grassroots activists.
With nearly two years to go before the official start of the 2028 primary season, the straw poll findings are not seen as predictive of who will be the Republican Party’s next pick for the White House. But they signal what is likely to be a competitive field as Donald Trump’s inner circle vies to take up the mantle as the party’s standard bearer.
Trump has heaped praise on both Vance and Rubio — who challenged him for the party’s nomination in 2016 — in recent months.
Neither the vice-president nor the secretary of state has said he will run for president in 2028, nor have they ruled out a bid for the White House. A presidential run is not likely to be announced until after November’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be seeking to hold on to control of both chambers of Congress.
Still, attendees at this week’s CPAC, held in Grapevine, Texas, just outside of Dallas, were already contemplating the party’s future after Trump. The president skipped the annual gathering for the first time in a decade. A White House official blamed Trump’s schedule for his absence, saying: “He is heavily engaged in the ongoing Iran conflict and managing other critical issues.”
CPAC chair Matt Schlapp told the FT before the straw poll results were released that it was “hard to imagine” the annual conference without the president, saying: “He has remade the coalition of folks that make up the conservative or the right part of politics.”
“I have always had this nagging in the back of my head: what does it look like when Donald Trump isn’t leading all of this?” Schlapp added. “People are thinking about it now.”
