Vance and Rubio jockey for position in post-Trump GOP race

Donald Trump has not chosen a successor, and that vacuum is already hardening into an early power struggle inside the post-Trump Republican Party. Less than a year into Trump’s second term, JD Vance and Marco Rubio have emerged as the clearest rivals in the 2028 conversation, each representing a different lane in the coalition that would have to replace Trump.

The stakes became visible on February 4, when Trump declined to take sides when asked whether Vance or Rubio would be his most likely successor in the 2028 Republican presidential campaign. Vance, the former Republican senator from Ohio and now vice president, has said he plans to talk with Trump about whether to run after the November 2026 midterm elections. Rubio, who serves as secretary of state, has been moving in plain sight, with a May 5 White House press briefing adding to his national profile and reinforcing the sense that he is building a broader audience.

The numbers underline how far the race has already progressed. At the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, Vance won 53 percent and Rubio finished with 35 percent. That keeps Vance well ahead among conservative activists, but Rubio’s showing marked a clear rise from the prior year and narrowed the gap enough to make him a serious alternative in Republican circles that want a figure with wider institutional credibility.

The contrast between the two men is shaping the Republican map. Vance’s route runs through the vice presidency, conservative activism and the Trump movement’s populist wing. Rubio’s path runs through the State Department, repeated White House visibility and a more traditional Washington profile. If Vance is the first choice of the party’s ideological base, Rubio is the candidate who can argue he is better positioned to translate Trump-era politics into a broader governing coalition.

Trump’s family is also part of the calculation. His comments about his “kids” taking on bigger roles fit a broader pattern in which Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have grown more visible in politics and business during Trump’s second term. Their presence, along with Trump’s wider inner circle, is helping shape the invisible primary before it formally begins, and could influence which Republican ambitious enough to run is seen as the truest heir to Trump’s coalition.