The 2028 election season unofficially kicks off in less than a month, and there’s really one question for Republicans: Will JD Vance or someone else be the nominee? At this point, I’d put my money on the field.
Vance’s biggest potential advantage is that he might have President Donald Trump’s backing. But that assumes Trump would go all-in for anyone other than himself. What happens when Vance begins laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run, starts gaining attention, and Trump gets jealous? What happens the first time Vance tries to distance himself from one of Trump’s policies (like, say, the Iran war)? Is Trump actually capable of putting the needs of his chosen successor first? And if the son of the jailed former president of Brazil wins the presidency there — as appears increasingly likely — does that give Trump and Don Jr. ideas?
And that all assumes that Trump’s endorsement is even worth having by the start of primary season. If the unfolding midterms are any indication, Vance’s connection to Trump, and his role in this wildly unpopular administration, could easily become a liability rather than an advantage.
But put aside Trump for a moment, and consider JD Vance on his own. Is he really presidential timber? I have my doubts. The MAGA movement has, during the Trump years, come to expect a standard bearer who oozes authenticity, excitement and entertainment. Vance, however, comes across as nerdy, awkward and thirsty. He reminds me less of a potential president and more of the character you’d get if Michael Scott from “The Office” ran for, well, office.
Fairly or not, there’s just something about Vance’s public persona that often strikes people as slightly askew. There was the viral moment in a Georgia doughnut shop in 2024, when Vance was widely mocked for his stilted interaction with an employee. There was his strange joke about how Democrats would label him racist for drinking Diet Mountain Dew. Call it the Ron DeSantis problem — a candidate who has appeal on paper but then, in person, it all just kind of doesn’t work.
Trump, for all his faults, is who he is. Vance is, in many ways, the opposite. His defining trait is arguably the constant reinvention of his identity. (Quite literally, since Vance — or should I say James David Hamel — has gone by multiple name variations over his life.) He converted from Protestantism to Catholicism (although, in typically awkward JD fashion, the cover of his recent memoir “Communion” features the photo of a Methodist church). He went from being a Never Trumper (who compared Trump to Hitler) to his most loyal defender. More recently, he transformed his physical body by dropping weight. His new physique was made possible, he says, by a high-protein diet featuring lots of sauerkraut that was given to him by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Also strange!)
None of these changes appear entirely natural or organic. Instead, they seem like the strategies of a striver trying desperately to make it to the top — the type of person who has, over the course of his career, latched on to powerful but very different mentors: Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel and, finally, Trump himself.
In his current incarnation, Vance seems willing to say just about anything to ingratiate himself with the most toxic elements of the right. He has endorsed the idea that so-called heritage Americans should have more influence in America (“I think the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don’t belong”), rationalized spreading lies about Haitian migrants living in Ohio, and refused to fully separate from racist elements inside the GOP. These stances are wrong on the merits, and they are made all the more baffling by the fact that Vance’s wife is Indian-American and Hindu (although he hopes she will one day embrace Christianity). Conservative writer Rod Dreher has said that his friendship with Vance ended when Dreher encouraged him to clearly renounce the bigotry of the far right. Wouldn’t someone with a real moral core take a stronger stand against his own movement’s pathologies?
Most voters haven’t spent much time focusing on all this stuff — yet. But what happens when the spotlight turns toward Vance, and people start digging a little deeper into his history? It’s hard to imagine he has the same sort of Houdini magic that allowed Trump to pull off so many miraculous escapes.
For all these reasons, I think it is likely that Vance’s status as heir apparent will be tested. The question will be: Does Vance, the Ohio boy turned Marine turned Appalachian memoirist (who didn’t actually grow up in Appalachia) turned venture capitalist turned senator and now vice president, have the intangible charisma, the core convictions and the sophisticated political skills to navigate the viciousness that is about to come his way? Now that would be the ultimate story of reinvention.
Matt K. Lewis is a Washington Sun Perspectives columnist.
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