The 2028 GOP Race Is On

Republicans’ historic wipeout in the 2026 midterm elections is already having major ramifications for the party’s 2028 presidential race.

Republican lawmakers and commentators are downgrading the odds that Vice President JD Vance will win the party’s presidential nomination because of his role defending President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies, which led to Democrats sweeping control of the House and Senate in Tuesday’s elections. Vance was widely seen as a frontrunner for the nomination before Tuesday.

“There’s one winner tonight on the Republican side, and that’s Marco Rubio,” Fox News host and former Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said of Trump’s secretary of state during an appearance on the network Wednesday morning.

He noted that Trump won’t be on the ballot again, but that “for JD Vance, good luck.”

Vance immediately gave his take about what happened in a long post on X Wednesday morning as he started to distance himself from the president’s policies.

“The main problem” on Tuesday night wasn’t turnout, he wrote. “The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.”

He wrote that the reason for the loss was “obvious to almost everyone” — the war in Iran, high cost of living, deemphasizing “America First” and the U.S. relationship with Israel.

“Our voters showed up,” he wrote. “And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.”

But even as he starts to create separation from Trump now, Vance is tethered to the administration and its politics, including the war in Iran.

Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman wasted no time endorsing Rubio for president.

“Now that we lost majorities, we can’t push policy, so we will have to do better at communicating,” Stutzman told Fox News early Wednesday.

Rubio, who ran for president in 2016, said in September he has no current plans to run for president again.

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I have no plans at this time. I’m not a candidate for anything right now. And I’m 100 percent focused on my job, and I have to be because I have two jobs,” he said, referring to his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser.

The former Florida senator joined Trump on the campaign trail in the weeks leading up to the election, putting a spotlight on his administration’s foreign policy achievements, including pressure campaigns regarding Venezuela and Cuba. He was also an early cheerleader for going to war in Iran, which could complicate a future presidential run.

Another potential 2028 presidential contender getting buzz in the wake of Tuesday’s results is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had warned about the lack of enthusiasm among Republican voters ahead of the midterms. Florida was one of the few states that pulled out Republican statewide wins, with Rep. Byron Donalds winning his bid for governor and Sen. Ashley Moody winning a closer than expected race.

“DeSantis just became the front runner for 2028 !!!!!!” wrote former Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci in a post on social media.

DeSantis was a bitter Trump primary rival in 2024 who later mended fences with the president. He’s popular with the MAGA base, but doesn’t have the baggage of Trump’s unpopular policies like Vance would — including the war in Iran, and the high cost of gas and other consumer goods — which could give him a leg up in a post-Trump presidential primary.

On Wednesday he already started to argue that his governing record in Florida puts him above the rest of the party.

“To call it a wave would not be politically accurate. It was more like a meteor strike,” DeSantis said in a press conference addressing Republicans’ disappointing midterm election results.

DeSantis positioned himself as the leader of the only state to come out of Tuesday night’s bloodbath relatively unscathed. He blamed current Republicans for losing the Senate, and predicted that conservatives would not have decisive control of Congress potentially for a decade. He credited Florida’s Republican wins on a strategic choice to include a property elimination tax initiative on the ballot, saying he “was the chief person to do that.”

Other candidates whose fortunes could rise for 2028 include prominent Trump critics such as former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Haley argued during an interview on NBC News Tuesday that Republicans need to go back to their roots and embrace conservative policies.

“Economic freedom. Lower taxes. Smaller government … those are things we win on. When Americans feel unheard of, we lose. Republicans have not been following that playbook, especially fiscal responsibility,” Haley said.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been eyeing a run but may also face headwinds should he throw his hat into the ring. Now that Texas will have a Democratic governor next year in Gina Hinojosa, she would get to appoint someone to the U.S. Senate if Cruz is elected president or vice president. That could add to the Democratic majority in 2029, giving Republicans less reason to nominate Cruz.

Even as many immediately started looking ahead to 2028, Republican lawmakers and officials throughout the country were still trying to wrap their heads around the recriminations of Tuesday night.

“Americans don’t like chaos, narcissism, tariffs, corruption, Putin, rudeness to our allies, arrogance & indecency,” Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon posted on X. “The GOP should embrace our roots: free markets, economic freedom, peace through strength, federalism, law and order, low taxes, pro-life… and we should act like leaders of the free world.”