The next presidential campaign is formally in hibernation at this point, at least until the day after the midterms. While that might be a relief to exhausted news consumers, that has not stopped a slew of political professionals, wannabes, and contenders from jockeying for position and seeking to influence the contours of the race. On the Republican side, the conversation is focused on two possible candidates: Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Many take it as given that the future of the party rests in one or the other man’s hands, and Vance isn’t doing anything to dismiss the conventional wisdom about the coming GOP contest.
“I have no doubt that the president of the United States is going to be very supportive of anything that I ultimately decide to do,” Vance told me recently in a CBS News Sunday Morning interview at the vice-presidential residence. “But we really just haven’t talked about what that thing will be.”
The two perceived front-runners have different styles and appeal to separate, if often overlapping, parts of the GOP base and conservative movement. The vice president is generally favored by the populist wing of the right, including many young activists and media figures; he already sports the endorsement of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk, who is now leading Turning Point USA. Rubio is more popular among some traditional conservatives and in hawkish corners of the foreign-policy establishment.
Yet they are both definitional political insiders in President Donald Trump’s Washington. From their nearly adjacent West Wing offices, both have advanced the agenda of the president, maintained his good favor, and readied themselves to potentially carry on his MAGA movement once he leaves office.
