J.D. Vance is clearly trying to thread a needle as he prepares to run for the Republican presidential nomination next year.
On the one hand, the Vice President doesn’t want to appear too eager for the job. He insisted last week he might choose not to run because “we’ve got four little kids” at home. On the other hand, he told 2WAY’s Mark Halperin Monday, “I think if I run, the President will endorse me.” But he left himself an out: “Because the President’s endorsement is so dispositive, you could absolutely see a scenario where the President says, ‘You know what? We need to let like this race play out and not preemptively prejudge the results.’”
Vance himself has to perform a balancing act. President Trump’s approval rating has gradually drifted downward from the 47 percent it averaged when he took office in January 2025. His aggregate approval rating is now 37 percent, the lowest of any modern president at this point in their term. In this month’s Fox News poll, 74 percent rate the economy negatively and 53 percent expect it to get worse next year. Only 18 percent say their family is better off now compared to two years ago.
Vance is fully prepared to run for president against Washington. He will still portray himself as an outsider
Politico reported that numbers like that explain why Democrats are “leaning hard into anti-corruption messaging in the final weeks of the campaign as new research suggests that linking corruption to Americans’ economic struggles can boost Democrats into the home stretch.” It reported that linking corruption with the cost of everyday living raised voter support for Democratic congressional candidates by about three percentage points, according to a national survey conducted by Blue Rose Research. At this month’s “No Kings” anti-Trump protests a frequently spotted placards read: “The accumulation of power and money for the few is always at the expense of the many.”
A Republican wipeout in the November midterm elections could see Trump’s standing fall further even among Republicans. A Washington Post poll this month found almost two out of three Americans believing that Trump is using his presidency to enrich himself. Among Republicans and those who lean Republican, 34 percent agree, up from just 22 percent in September 2025.
“Vance knows he has to be seen as loyal to Trump to keep the MAGA base in the primaries,” a pollster who has worked for Trump told me. “But he also has to carve out a profile as his own man.”
This week, Vance declined to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his hard-fought battle for reelection this month. The contrast with Trump, who embraced the Israeli leader with his “Complete and Total Endorsement” was clear. “I endorse American candidates,” Vance told Halperin was the reason for his thinking during his interview this week.
But that wasn’t his stance this past April, when he flew 4,600 miles from Washington, DC to Budapest to campaign for two days with then-Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. He urged people at a rally he headlined to “go to the polls this weekend and stand with Viktor Orbán.” He described Orbán as “one of the only true statesmen in Europe,” and one known for a rare “combination of diplomatic skill and wisdom.” Orban’s party, which had developed a reputation for corruption during 16 years in power, went down to a landslide defeat winning only 52 out of 199 seats in Parliament.
Vance may have had that experience in mind when CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil asked him about the Trump administration’s ethics record during a town hall meeting in Michigan last Friday. When asked by Dokoupil about polls that show many voters believe Trump has been prioritizing his personal business interests over the national interest, Vance responded that he has “never seen anything like that from the President” and noted that Trump was already a billionaire before he entered politics.
But Vance is fully prepared to nonetheless run for president against Washington. He will still portray himself as an outsider. He acknowledged to Dokoupil that “DC is a corrupt town” and anyone selling White House access is “disgusting and despicable” and should “suffer consequences.” He pledged to personally honor any subpoenas Democratic-controlled congressional oversight committees might issue against him.
He may already know that stance could be useful in a presidential race, since there is open discussion that everyone from Trump cabinet members to White House aides may ignore such subpoenas next year knowing that Congress can do little to enforce them (as was proven when the GOP House pursued then-Obama Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012).
But intrusive congressional probes on everything from pay-to-play pardons to renovating the Kennedy Center would still slow down Trump’s agenda during his final two years in office. That could reduce enthusiasm among Republicans for Trump’s tenure – or his heir apparent Vance – leading into the 2028 elections.
That is what Vance’s possible rivals for the nomination are hoping for. Last August, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas dismissed predictions that the Republican party had coalesced around Vance as its 2028 nominee. He claimed the party must and will first have a “full discussion about who we are and what we believe.”
There are some early signs that Vice President Vance privately agrees that will happen.
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