(WASHINGTON) — A year ago, the stage seemed set for Vice President JD Vance to succeed President Donald Trump as the MAGA heir apparent in 2028.
Vance, just 40 years old at the time of the 2024 election, came into office with wave of support from Republicans and the backing of the president’s family.
And while the vice president remains well-positioned ahead of a likely 2028 campaign, questions are quietly emerging over Vance’s inevitability, especially as Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s profile and responsibilities have grown throughout the first year of Trump’s second term, most recently around the war with Iran.
The long-term political implications of the war remain to be seen, but Rubio’s rise has caught the eye of not only some of Trump’s closest allies, but the president himself, who in private has been noting how “popular” and “loved” Rubio has become as part of his team, multiple sources told ABC News.
People around the president have noted the lavish praise Trump heaps on Rubio, privately but also in public, often starting standing ovations for him and declaring that Rubio will go down as “the greatest secretary of state in history.”
The president, however, has opted thus far not to formally endorse either Vance or Rubio as his preferred successor, instead saying he would like to see them run together on a joint ticket, without specifying who should be at the top.
Privately, the president has repeatedly tossed the question to allies and associates about who they would like to see at the top of the ticket, asking, “Marco or JD?,” as AXIOS first reported, including recently to a group of donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in late February, sources said.
‘Draft Rubio’ movement rises
Amid Rubio’s rise, a group of Republican donors who support the secretary of state has also quietly begun discussing ways to further boost Rubio’s political future ahead of 2028, multiple sources told ABC News.
They described an emerging, behind-the-scenes effort to elevate him within the party and stand up a potential “draft Rubio” effort following the midterms. The discussions, according to those sources, are being driven by donors and surrogates who support Rubio, not the secretary of state himself, reflecting what some in Trump-aligned circles see as a growing enthusiasm for Rubio’s rising profile inside the administration.
However, in recent presidential elections, donor support has not always directly translated to political success.
“Donors don’t pick the nominee – the base picks,” a senior Republican operative told ABC News. “Donors tried to abandon President Trump and tried to pick [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis, and we all saw how that went.”
Asked about political donors being drawn to Rubio, White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to ABC News that Trump has assembled a strong team to work under him and that nothing will deter the administration in its work.
“The President has assembled an all-star team that has achieved unprecedented success in just over one year. No amount of crazed media speculation about Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio will deter this Administration’s mission of fighting for the American people,” Cheung said.
The vice president’s office declined to comment.
Over the course of the administration’s first year, Rubio has emerged as a leading voice of the Trump administration, taking on numerous senior roles including acting national security adviser and acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to the point where it has become a running joke around Washington about what position Rubio will take on next.
The State Department did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
By Trump’s side for Iran strikes
Rubio’s star has risen particularly since the Trump administration’s recent strikes on Iran, with the secretary emerging as a leading face communicating the operation alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. When President Trump gave his top military commanders the green light to launch a sweeping attack on Iran, Rubio wasn’t in Washington – he was already on his way to a makeshift situation room in Mar-a-Lago, where he would monitor the first hours of Operation Epic Fury by the president’s side.
Vance was in the Situation Room monitoring the strikes with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. They were dialed into a conference line with President Trump and the rest of the national security team at Mar-a-Lago.
A spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the vice president “remained in Washington to maintain operational secrecy and in keeping with the administration’s security protocol to limit the President and Vice President co-locating away from the White House.”
Through the early days of the conflict, Rubio has continued to play a highly visible supporting role, remaining by the president’s side at Mar-a-Lago during those early days – a position that has fueled speculation that his stock was on the rise.
But Rubio’s elevated profile amid the Iran strikes could cut both ways. While the secretary of state has taken more of a central role, if he did have future political ambitions, that could also tie him closer to the military operation. Early polling suggests the war is unpopular with most Americans, as just 29% approve of the strikes, while 43% disapprove and 26% remain unsure, according to an Ipsos poll.
The same Ipsos poll also shows that a majority of Americans believe that Trump has not explained the goals of the war, with 64% say Trump has not clearly explained the war’s objective.
Neither Vance nor Rubio has officially declared plans to run for president, and when asked by Vanity Fair last year, Rubio said he would support the vice president. “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio said.
Vance keeping lower profile
Meanwhile, Vance, a Marine Corps veteran of the war in Iraq, had maintained a relatively low profile following the start of the war in Iran but is now ramping back up his official and political events, including speaking this afternoon in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where he spoke briefly about the Iran war in his remarks to voters.
Vance also has not been as active on his social media platforms, such as X, as he has been in the past.
In a statement to ABC News about Vance’s public communications during the early days of the strikes, a senior White House official said “the national security team was deliberate on letting the President’s statements and addresses to the nation stand as the operation unfolded.”
Vance was also slated to appear at a town hall with CBS News that was set to air on Saturday, but following the Iran strikes, the scheduled broadcast has been postponed, citing the war in Iran.
Vance is, however, still maintaining a robust fundraising schedule as finance chair of the Republican National Committee, with fundraisers scheduled in Dallas and Austin later this month, according to fundraiser flyers obtained by ABC News.
During a press conference on Monday, Trump said that he and Vance were “philosophically a little bit different” when it came to the U.S. war with Iran after ABC News previously reported that Vance internally expressed reservations about the strikes late last month. Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward, Vance shifted to work on supporting the military operation.
“I don’t think so. No, no, we get along very well on this. He was, I would say philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was, maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But, I felt it was something we had to do. I didn’t feel we had a choice. If we didn’t do it, they would have done it to us,” Trump said Monday evening in Florida.
Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward, Vance shifted to work on supporting the military operation.
Hegseth was asked during Friday’s Pentagon press briefing about the role Vance played in the military operation and reports that he differed from Trump on the Iran strikes. Hegseth praised the team Trump has pulled together and said that the team “provides options to the President and the Vice President every single day, and is a key voice in that.”
Vance said in an interview with Fox News on March 2 that he did not believe Trump would get the U.S. into a “multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective.”
The vice president’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, pushed back against reports of Vance’s view on the war in Iran.
“The Vice President has been the focus of constant leaks left and right by people trying to project their views onto him,” Van Kirk said. “And as a result, there have been countless inconsistent accounts of the Vice President’s views published, which shows the mainstream media has no idea what they’re talking about. The Vice President, a proud member of the President’s national security team, keeps his counsel to the President private.”
The ‘Tucker dilemma’ for Vance
Some close administration advisers around the president have expressed frustration over Vance’s close ties to voices who have emerged as critics speaking out against Iran, including popular commentator Tucker Carlson, sources said, and have grown close to Rubio, viewing him as a leading figure across multiple fronts.
Laura Loomer, the influential far-right activist who has the president’s ear, has emerged as one of Vance’s staunchest critics from within the MAGA base – routinely targeting the vice president over his connections to critical voices like Carlson, who along with others lobbied Trump to select him as vice president during the 2024 campaign.
Loomer, who spoke to the president recently about the war in Iran, has called on Vance to condemn Carlson following his criticism of Iran strikes and has been boosting the idea that Rubio’s profile is on the rise. “RUBIO RISING 🇺🇸 Get ready for 2028!,” Loomer posted on social media earlier in March.
“Months ago, I called it the ‘Tucker dilemma,"” Loomer told ABC News when reached for comment. “I said that JD Vance has a Tucker problem. And I do believe that one of the reasons why a lot of the GOP donors, as well as a lot of the GOP base, is souring on JD is that he has not explicitly condemned Tucker.”
“If he doesn’t disavow him, Marco’s going to be the nominee,” Loomer said.
Following the initial strikes on Iran, Carlson told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that the operation was “absolutely disgusting and evil,” comments that President Trump later responded to by saying the former Fox News anchor had “lost his way” and that he “knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.
Headwinds for Rubio
While some GOP donors aligned with Rubio have begun quietly discussing a potential 2028 bid, if the the secretary of state were to run he would face real formidable obstacles running against the vice president, who has spent the past several years working to consolidate support within Trump’s Republican party.
Vance has secured the backing of some of the most influential figures in the Republican party, perhaps none more important that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and Carlson, both of whom played pivotal roles in elevating him to the vice presidency during the 2024 campaign.
But Vance also has deep ties to some of the biggest GOP donors from the tech world, including billionaires Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. And Vance has already been endorsed by the late Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, one of the most powerful grassroots organizations on the right, which has already begun standing up staff and operations in the primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
As RNC finance chair, Vance has started courting major donors across the country, while also maintaining close ties to the Rockbridge Network, a donor and policy organization he helped found before entering politics that connects him to a broad group of wealthy conservative backers and operatives.
Rubio’s last presidential run in 2016 began with high expectations, including the backing of major GOP donors and party strategists, but it ultimately faltered. He finished third in the Iowa caucuses behind Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump before placing fifth in the New Hampshire primary and ultimately losing his home state of Florida to Trump, after which he suspended his campaign.
At the time, ABC News’ analysis of the primary noted that Rubio was part of the establishment Republican lane that collapsed as Trump “took over the Republican Party by sheer force of personality,” defeating a field that included establishment darlings like at the time rising figures such as Rubio.
Today, voters are negative about both men, according to an NBC poll conducted last week. About half of registered voters had a negative opinion of Vance (49%), while 38% were positive: a net negative of 11 points. For Rubio, 41% were negative and 34% were positive, a net negative 7 points. The remainders for each were either neutral, not sure or didn’t know their names.
Behind the scenes, the secretary’s close political allies have mirrored Rubio’s deference-denying that he has his sights set on the White House, while quietly emphasizing that they believe he would make a great president.
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