Female contender emerges out of nowhere as Vance-Rubio 2028 showdown threatens to tear MAGA apart
As usual, it was the first state to vote for the party's nominee, and Rubio - the son of a bartender and a maid - crisscrossed the cornfields, charming Iowans along the way.
Rubio ultimately lost, and Donald Trump became president, but many of the people he met remember him well.
'Marco Rubio made a big impression here - and a lot of friends,' a well-connected Republican strategist in Iowa told the Daily Mail. 'People warmed to him, he's very likeable. He was humble, thoughtful and did pretty damn well. People remember him. Vance has been here one or two times, I think.'
The prospect of a 2028 run-off between Vice President JD Vance and Rubio is a rumor that refuses to go away, despite Rubio's own efforts to dismiss it.
He recently told Lara Trump on Fox News that he wants to remain Secretary of State through January 2028 and 'would be satisfied with that as the apex of my career.'
Vance 'would be a great nominee,' he said. 'He's a close friend and I hope he intends to do it.'
The persistent talking up of Rubio as a potential nominee is fueled partly by widespread praise for the role he has played in Trump's administration.
In addition to Secretary of State, he held down three other posts. He has even been described as the 'new Kissinger.'
This week, CNN analyst Eric Bradner reported that Rubio was polling particularly well in Iowa, and that he was 'surprised' how often his name came up there.
Ultimately, insiders who spoke to the Daily Mail agree there would be no path for Rubio unless Vance decided he didn't want the nomination.
Even in Iowa, Vance is a prohibitive favorite and would win any contest, they say.
'Vance has name ID off the charts,' said the Iowa Republican strategist. 'He'd have the imprimatur of a sitting president, and he'd have the MAGA mantle.
'Vance is truly connected and has an extremely important role with the MAGA base.'
The strategist said Vance would have 'a big head start' against any challenger, should he choose to run.
Still, Vance's biggest threat could be a newcomer not yet on anyone's radar.
'It could be someone like Marco Rubio was eight years ago,' the insider continued. 'A new senator or governor throwing their hat into the ring simply to become better known.'
A Republican strategist in Washington agreed and said there would be no need for Trump to weigh in on the matter.
'I think JD Vance is the nominee 100 percent,' he said. 'He's an incredibly gifted political athlete. Marco Rubio is a great guy as well, but JD Vance is the vice president, he's going to be the party's nominee. The vice president's the nominee, that's how it goes.'
The source said voters would see more of Vance on the road in the run-up to next year's midterm elections.
'They'll really realize that he's an incredibly gifted individual. He happens to be a great guy as well, so, on a retail level, he's incredibly charming.'
However, there could be a third possibility in 2028, according to some, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem being a name that comes up.
On Tuesday, Trump again declined to explicitly declare Vance his successor, but said he was 'most likely' to take over.
'In all fairness, he's the vice president,' Trump said. 'I think Marco is also somebody that maybe would get together with JD in some form.'
That raised the possibility of a potential Vance-Rubio ticket.
But, Trump added, 'I also think we have incredible people, some of the people on the stage right here.'
One of those people was Noem, who is thought to have higher political ambitions.
She is a former member of Congress and a former governor of South Dakota.
'She's now, arguably, the most qualified person to be president,' said pollster Frank Luntz. 'She's done the issues that people care about in a way that Republican primary voters will appreciate.
'She's got a perfect resume and she communicates the Trump philosophy with a Midwestern sensibility, and that's perfect in states like Iowa.'
But Luntz said Vance had one of the best vice presidential debate performances of any candidate in modern times, in which he 'destroyed' Kamala Harris' running mate, Tim Walz, during the 2024 campaign.
According to focus groups conducted by Luntz, that performance made Vance a 'major player'.
'That's why it was, in the end, such a smart choice for Trump to choose him. If you take a look at the polling, it was straight up from there (for Trump),' he said. 'Vance demonstrated his value. It was truly exceptional.'
Luntz said Rubio, meanwhile, had redefined himself within the Republican Party.
'No longer are people saying to me "Little Marco," they now see that his role is essential, and they see him as a leader.'
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The Independent
37 minutes ago
- The Independent
‘Texas law does not apply in Illinois': Gov. JB Pritzker draws line in sand as FBI ‘hunts down' runway Democrats
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday refuted claims that President Donald Trump could force Texas Democrats to return to their state and cooperate with a Republican redistricting effort, insisting FBI agents had no jurisdiction to enforce Texas law in his state. Three members of the Texas state legislature left the state to dodge warrants for their arrest, a ploy by the state's Republican governor to force their attendance on a vote to redraw congressional district lines. Republicans are seeking to redraw lines and gerrymander up to five congressional seats for their party in Congress. The largely unprecedented mid-decade effort threatens to kick off a national redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats with real, tangible consequences for party representation and the kinds of politicians sent to Washington. By leaving the state and refusing to appear at the legislature, the lawmakers forced a halt to the special legislative session called by Abbott to handle the redistricting process. The governor and his allies have threatened to continue calling those sessions until quorum is reached and the redistricting effort concludes. 'We're providing them a safe haven, a place for them to visit and stay, breaking quorum, because they're heroes that are standing up not just for their own constituents and for the people of Texas and their rights but also for the rights of people all across the country,' Pritzker told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. In Illinois, Pritzker said his administration is refusing to cooperate with Texas authorities and says that he won't allow FBI officials to participate in illegal actions. 'Texas law does not apply in the state of Illinois, and there's no federal law that would allow the FBI to arrest anybody that's here visiting our state,' said the governor. He went on to attack both Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Trump, whom Pritzker said Abbott was trying to impress with an 'illegal' effort to boost GOP numbers in the House of Representatives — where Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' passed in July by only a one-vote margin. 'They know that they're going to lose in 2026 the Congress, and so they're trying to steal seats,' Pritzker claimed. '[T]he map that they put together, it violates the Voting Rights Act, and it violates the Constitution.' '[Trump] knows he's going to lose the Congress in 2026,' the governor continued. 'That's why he's going to his allies and hoping that they can save him. And we've all got to stand up against this. This is — it's cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.' While Pritzker would claim that Abbott and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is running for re-election in a tight primary against a MAGA-backed opponent, were 'grandstanding' he would not rule out harboring his own similar national ambitions in the same interview. Pressed by Kristen Welker, Pritzker wouldn't say one way or the other whether he planned to run for president in 2028. The governor, a billionaire, is widely viewed as one of the Democratic Party's best-positioned candidates to run for the White House given his Midwestern ties, ability to self-finance and growing national profile. Cornyn told a local radio station in Texas this past week that agents in two Texas FBI offices were assigned to the effort, without giving specifics of their given roles or what orders they were under. Pritzker did tell Welker that he was focused on his 2026 re-election campaign, but added: 'I can't rule anything out.' The governor is one of several Democratic state leaders who've publicly suggested that they would consider their own redistricting efforts — explicitly to aid Democrats — were Republicans to go forward with their plan in Texas to do the opposite. Kathy Hochul, in New York, called for the dissolution of her state's Independent Redistricting Commission (NYIRC) while telling reporters that it would be illegal for Trump to weaponize the FBI against Texas lawmakers. Hochul also fired back at Cornyn, telling reporters that the FBI did not have the legal authority to 'hunt down' the three members of Texas's state legislature who absconded to break quorum. 'First of all, I have a lot of respect for the FBI, but I guarantee there are far more important pursuits that they should be engaging in, like human trafficking, breaking up drug cartels, stopping terrorist attacks here in New York City,' she told MSNBC. 'So I think this is an abuse of the power of the FBI to direct them to go after duly elected officials in the United States of America,' the governor said. 'If we've fallen that far, that makes our fight even more important, that all people stand up and say, 'we're not going to let you take away our democracy, and you're not going to hunt down our elected officials.''
Times
an hour ago
- Times
JD Vance and Rubio are Republicans to beat (if there's a vacancy)
Relaxing in the drawing room of Chevening in a red-and-pink chair, JD Vance kicked off his summer break with a mini press conference. Flanked by David Lammy, the vice-president waxed lyrical on everything from Israel to fishing. But he had less to say when a reporter asked if he was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2028. 'I don't want to talk about lowly things like politics in this grand house. Come on,' he replied, keen to change the subject. Yet there's no denying that Washington is bubbling with speculation about the succession in three years' time. President Trump set the hare running on Tuesday when he was asked by a Fox reporter whether he would 'clear the field' and confirm that Vance was his heir apparent. Trump didn't go all in but he did concede his deputy was the 'most likely' and 'would be probably favourite at this point'. He then brought up his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, as 'somebody that maybe would get together with JD' on a Republican ticket. 'These things start way sooner than they should,' said Henry Barbour, a political strategist who spent 19 years on the Republican National Committee. 'The reality is the race for 2028 started when President Trump decided who was going to be his vice-presidential nominee.' Back then, Vance beat Rubio to the role after Trump concluded he lacked chemistry with the Florida senator (he had also considered Robert F Kennedy Jr but decided he was 'too crazy'). On a podcast last week Katie Miller, the wife of the influential Trump aide Stephen Miller, put to Vance the idea of a joint ticket. In response, he spoke warmly of Rubio, referencing his sweet tooth ('half the time that I see Marco in the hallway it's because he's been down to the Navy mess in the White House and he's gotten a bunch of ice cream') and sense of humour — recalling a joke he cracked about a woman in his district trying to get her dead husband's body back from Israel. 'She said 'maybe I don't want him back, the last time somebody died over here they rose from the dead three days later'. I didn't know until the very end that it was a totally bullshit joke.' The biggest question for Republicans is who can keep together the winning coalition that Trump assembled at the 2024 election, adding peaceniks, black and Latino men, granola moms and vaccine sceptics to the party's traditional core of older white conservatives. While Democrats are quick to snipe ('Vance has no charisma. He's not Trump,' said one), a Vance-Rubio ticket would have some advantages. Neither man was born rich and both have compelling back stories. Vance is a rust belt intellectual who loves a fight and has deep ties to the libertarian tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Rubio is a smooth-talker from wealthy Miami who, as the child of Cuban immigrants, also represents the new Republican voter. Hispanics had the biggest swing to Trump in 2024. 'Vance can speak to the working class. Rubio can reassure the country clubs and Latinos,' one Republican said. Both are also young by presidential standards: Vance is a spring chicken at 41 and Rubio is 54. 'They could wait two more cycles and still be very much candidates,' one insider said. Of the two, Vance has been the more consistently isolationist — though the longstanding critic of US funding for the Ukraine war spent Saturday at Chevening meeting national security advisers from Europe, the US and UK before Trump's summit with Putin on Friday. Would they miss out by not having a woman as part of the team? 'Don't be woke,' a Maga figure urged. 'No one cares.' Yet there are obvious concerns too. Would Rubio really be happy to play second fiddle after running for the presidential nomination in 2016? 'To envision yourself as the leader of the free world and then to say, 'Oh yeah, no I'm not really interested any more, that's not really a goal,' would be untrue for Marco Rubio in the same way it would be untrue for so many others who have stepped on those debate stages,' said Manuel Roig-Franzia, author of The Rise of Marco Rubio. 'People have told him since he was a young man that he could be president one day and I think he's believed it since he was a young man.' Second, voters rarely choose to promote vice-presidents to the top job. Of the 50 US vice-presidents since 1789, only 15 have gone on to become president, of whom eight took the role after the death of a president. Vance has courted the limelight more than most vice-presidents, which brings its own risk. 'There's always a chance Trump finds it too much,' one insider said. On the 2024 campaign trail he was accused of lacking warmth and in DC it's not gone unnoticed that he has embarked on a slew of podcast appearances showing his softer side. Meanwhile Rubio, who in 2016 called Trump 'an embarrassment', has become one of the president's most trusted team members, regarded as an adult in the room who is also at home with true Maga believers. Old-school Republicans look on with a sense of horror wondering if their guy has lost his principles. The politician who once quoted Reagan and championed soft power and overseas intervention now dismantles USAid and takes an America First approach. Social media users post 'Free Marco' when he appears at cabinet. 'Marco Rubio is not ideological but he is opportunistic as far as how he's evolved,' said Roig-Franza, the biographer. 'You are seeing the maturing of Marco Rubio happening before our very eyes.' Rubio and Vance both face questions over their authenticity. 'Rubio is such a neocon,' said a senior Maga figure. 'The movement kind of still hates him. As for Vance, he's just not in the fight.' Some in Maga agree with Vance's isolationism but see him as too close to Silicon Valley. Another is more diplomatic: 'It's been six months. Vance still needs to prove himself.' Other Republicans thought to be considering a tilt in 2028 include Glenn Youngkin, the more moderate governor of Virginia, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas who was previously Trump's White House press secretary. Expect the list to grow. In Maga circles, some predict a field of 30 candidates when the time comes. 'Do not write off Eric Trump,' said one Washington old timer. 'My view is this will be wide open,' Barbour added. But there's an alternative scenario. Will there be a vacancy to fill? Trump has flirted with running again, although the constitution prohibits it. Lately he has suggested he will indeed step down after his second term but others hope to change his mind, arguing he is essential to the Republicans staying in power. Legal routes are being explored. As Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist who has himself been reported to be considering a presidential bid, told me: 'President Trump is the only candidate that guarantees victory in 2028 — that's why people are working feverishly to make this a reality.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Vance says US is ‘done with funding Ukraine war' ahead of Trump-Putin talks
The US is 'done with the funding of the Ukraine war', vice president JD Vance has warned. The American politician also vowed Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky will be 'forced' to meet by Donald Trump. In a wide-ranging interview, he went on to dismiss European leaders' calls to allow the Ukrainian president to attend the upcoming summit between the US and Russian leaders, insisting that it would not be 'productive' at this point. On Saturday, European leaders including Sir Keir Starmer jointly welcomed the meeting, which is planned for Friday in Alaska, as a move towards peace. However, they warned that any talks should see Ukraine represented and not permit any land to be ceded to Russia. Their statement came after Mr Trump admitted the deal may involve 'some swapping of territories' - a suggestion Mr Zelensky strongly rejected. Mr Vance told Fox News that Mr Trump 'has to be the one to bring these two together', before criticising Europe for not 'stepping up'. He said: 'What we said to the Europeans is simply: this is in your neck of the woods, this is in your back door. You guys have gotta step up and take a bigger role in this thing. And if you care so much about this conflict, you should be willing to play a more direct and substantial way in funding this war yourself. 'I think the president, and I certainly think that America, we're done with the funding of the Ukraine war business. We wanna bring about a peaceful settlement of this thing, we wanna stop the killing.' Mr Vance met with top European and Ukrainian officials at the British foreign secretary's weekend residence on Saturday to discuss how to end the war. European Commission president Kaja Kallas confirmed that European foreign ministers are scrambling to convene for an emergency meeting on Monday ahead of Friday's summit. As European nations rally behind Ukraine, Mr Zelensky thanked his allies, writing in a post on X on Sunday: "The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people." A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they aren't allowed to speak publicly, told the Associated Press that Mr Trump remained open to a trilateral summit with both the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, but for now, he will have a bilateral meeting requested by Putin. The summit may prove pivotal in the war that began in February 2022, although there is no guarantee it will stop the fighting, since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace. Saturday's statement, signed by the president of the European Union and leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the UK, stressed the need for a "just and lasting peace" for Kyiv, including "robust and credible" security guarantees. "The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," it added. US senator Lindsey Graham told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that a good deal would mean preventing an emboldened Russia, and aggressors elsewhere, from trying to once again redraw borders by force. A Trump ally and Russia hawk, Mr Graham nevertheless said that "you can't end a war without talking'. He added: "I do hope that Zelenskyy can be part of the process. I have every confidence in the world that [President Trump] is going to go to meet Putin from a position of strength, that he's going to look out for Europe and Ukrainian needs to end this war honourably.' A month-long US-led push to achieve a truce in Ukraine has so far proved fruitless, with Kyiv agreeing in principle while the Kremlin has held out for terms more to its liking. Mr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine "will not give Russia any awards for what it has done" and that "Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier". Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Mr Zelensky, noted on Sunday that Kyiv will strive to boost its position ahead of the planned Trump-Putin meeting. "Ahead lies an important week of diplomacy," he said. German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday that European leaders are "intensively preparing" ahead of the Alaska summit, while they "hope and expect" that Mr Zelensky will be invited. Nato's secretary general Mark Rutte on Sunday praised Washington for taking steps such as allowing more military equipment to flow to Ukraine and imposing secondary sanctions on India for purchasing Russian oil, saying Trump "clearly is putting pressure on Putin". In the interview with ABC's This Week, Mr Rutte added: 'Next Friday will be important because it will be about testing Putin – how serious he is – on bringing this terrible war to an end.' Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia continued to trade blows on the battlefield on Sunday. Three swimmers were killed by unexploded objects in Ukraine's southern Odesa region at two beaches where swimming has been banned, regional officials said. And Ukraine's military said on Sunday that it had struck an oil refinery in Russia's Saratov region in an overnight drone attack.
