Vance, DeSantis make quick moves after disastrous GOP midterms jumpstart 2028 race
By Steve Contorno, CNN
(CNN) — Vice President JD Vance’s seemingly straightforward path to succeeding President Donald Trump suddenly looks much murkier.
The Republican shellacking in Tuesday’s midterm elections has quickly triggered a public reckoning within the GOP over Trump’s place in the future of the party — one that threatens to complicate Vance’s efforts to consolidate party support behind a widely anticipated White House bid.
Vance appeared to recognize the danger Wednesday morning, blaming the party’s sweeping losses on the war with Iran and distancing himself from Trump’s unpopular foreign policy decisions. In a lengthy post on X, Vance appeared to sketch out what the foundations for his own 2028 platform, centered on ending the war, tackling affordability, refocusing on domestic challenges and reconsidering America’s relationship with Israel.
“To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be,” he wrote. “Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.”
But there are already signs that there may be a widening lane for someone outside the administration to seize the nomination in 2028.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote Wednesday on X that “the scale of the Republican defeat is so great that it makes the race for the GOP presidential nomination wide open.” In the post, he ripped Vance for defending an ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that featured the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. The ad received bipartisan blowback and on Tuesday, Acton defeated Ramaswamy.
“A good bit of the luster has come off the bloom,” Gingrich wrote.
Bob Vander Plaats, an influential conservative leader in Iowa, where Republicans will have the first say in choosing their next nominee, predicted the losses would embolden presidential hopefuls from across the party to test the waters. By next year, he said, the field could rival the crowded 2016 Republican primary.
“There are a lot of people now who will be making the case they can take this baton and move us forward,” Vander Plaats said.
A longtime Republican operative in New Hampshire, who asked not to be named, said the prospect of Vance running as a third Trump term looks increasingly “problematic” after Tuesday. The operative also expected voters in the nation’s first primary will give other candidates a serious look.
DeSantis tries to carve a lane
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in particular, has wasted little time seizing the party’s historic defeats to revive interest in his own political future. DeSantis unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024 and, before Tuesday, had seen his stock diminish as his time in public office came to a close.
But DeSantis in recent days has received renewed attention for his pointed critique of Trump’s second stint in Washington.
In a lengthy interview with Stephen A. Smith released on the eve of the election, DeSantis accused the Trump administration of gaslighting voters, failing to tackle Washington corruption and botching its immigration rollout. He challenged Republicans to rethink their relationship with Big Tech and heed growing concerns about data centers and artificial intelligence — a notable shot at an industry that is close to Vance.
On Wednesday, DeSantis called the midterms an “extinction-level event for Republicans,” while touting that Florida “was able to hold the line.” Republican nominees for governor and Senate narrowly survived, but DeSantis’ efforts to net his party more congressional seats via redistricting appears to have fallen short.
Several people involved in DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign told CNN that his movements in the past 48 hours were interpreted within his orbit as keeping the door open to another White House bid. On Wednesday, DeSantis declined to discuss his future and told CNN he will “be a free man” in January.
DeSantis wasn’t the only ambitious Republican rushing to rationalize the midterm losses. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who, said Wednesday on his popular “Verdict” podcast after his state saw massive GOP losses that “too many in politics dismissed” affordability concerns — an issue Trump himself regularly insisted was a manufactured problem.
“Understandably people were pissed off and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain,” he said.
Meanwhile, outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump antagonist, on Wednesday laid out his own vision for the party centered on the “conservative principles of our party.”
“It’s time we get back to those principles in the months and years to come,” Kemp wrote.
A GOP operative in neighboring South Carolina, another early-nominating state, told CNN after seeing Kemp’s post: “He’s running.” The person noted that Kemp recently appeared in the Palmetto State to help campaign for the Republican gubernatorial candidate there, Attorney General Alan Wilson, who won on Tuesday.
Vance’s calculus
To be sure, Vance remains the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination. Primary voters typically are considerably deferential to vice presidents. Vance would bring other advantages to a protracted nomination battle, including a close relationship with the party’s biggest donors after serving as Republican National Committee finance chair for the past 20 months.
He also has the backing of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, that is seen as a turnkey political operation for Vance if he wants it. However, the group’s political influence took a hit in the midterms as well. Republicans suffered heavy losses in states where the group is especially active, and it went all-in on Republican Andy Biggs, who is on track to the lose the Arizona governor race by double digits. A spokesman for Turning Point didn’t return a request for comment.
Vance presumably would run with Trump’s support — an endorsement Vance recently said he expects to receive but has yet to come. Trump does not appear especially eager to pass the torch and has at times floated other names as potential successors, most notably Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The former Florida senator remains of favorite of many establishment figures in the GOP and has created new fans among the MAGA faithful, but it’s not clear that he wants to run and has said in the past he wouldn’t go up against Vance. As a key player in Trump’s administration, especially on foreign policy, Rubio could face similar headwinds as Vance running to succeed him.
Despite his platform-like statement Wednesday, it isn’t a sure thing that Vance will seek the nomination either. Vance himself has said he would wait until after the midterms to make that decision and close allies have publicly and privately suggested that Tuesday’s outcome is likely to factor into that calculus.
Trump said Wednesday he remains in the dark on Vance’s plans.
“Maybe he won’t run,” Trump said as he showed off construction for his White House ballroom. “I don’t know who is going to run.”
A wide-open field?
If Vance ultimately forgoes a White House bid, a chaotic race to replace Trump would surely follow. Several members of Trump’s own Cabinet harbor presidential ambitions – including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – and it’s unclear they would run unless Vance decided against it. Hegseth is also facing renewed criticism from his party over the war with Iran and could face an impeachment vote in the House as soon as next week, CNN reported Wednesday.
The political movements of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson remain a source of intrigue among Republicans as well. Carlson, a close friend of Vance, remains publicly supportive of the vice president and has said he won’t seek the presidency. But he has also floated the creation of a third party, and supporters like former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have encouraged him to run.
In Iowa, as voters weighed in on the midterms, some future caucus-goers were already ready to look beyond Trump as they consider who replaces him.
“I want to get away from that idea of ‘Trump Republican,’ and just get back to Republican-conservative,” said David McDonald, a 59-year-old meat cutter from Des Moines told CNN.
Marion, Iowa, retiree Rich Sidman acknowledged the future of the GOP will come down to how Trump fares over the next two years.
“It’s all about the economy, the economy, the economy,” Sidman said.
He’s bullish, though, on Vance after seeing him speak during the vice president’s recent campaign swing through Iowa. And if the caucuses were today, that’s who Sidman would vote for.
What about DeSantis — who made Iowa a second home in 2023 as he tried to seize the party from Trump?
Sidman thought for a moment, then said: “I wouldn’t mind seeing DeSantis either.”
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Dianne Gallagher, Betsy Klein and Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.
