“We gotta take care of business this November,” said Vice President J.D. Vance, demurely, at the Republican convention last night, “then we’ll worry about what comes next.”
He was referring to the chants of “28! 28!” that emanated from the exuberant MAGA crowd – an appeal for him to be the next Republican presidential nominee.
The message of the night was clear, though. Following something of a wobble in the early months of 2026, Vance has re-emerged as the clear favorite to succeed Donald Trump. For now, the MAGA inheritance, and all its problems, seems to be his.
Trump has reportedly stopped doing his private “Marco or J.D.?” polls among house guests, friends and Rupert Murdoch. And the President has been eager to praise his veep’s abilities to anyone who’ll listen. He now thinks JD looks the part, apparently, and is always impressed by Vance’s smooth talk on television. Rubio, meanwhile, is rumored to be thinking about a 2032 run, which, as things stand today, would leave Vance with a fairly clear run at the nomination. But Rubio’s reluctance may also suggest that he believes the ’28 election is a disaster-in-waiting.
Vance has re-emerged as the clear favorite to succeed Donald Trump
Back in March, at the beginning of the Trumpian nightmare that is the Iran war, Vance appeared to be in a very difficult position within MAGA. The world knew he had grave misgivings about the conflict. He knew that the war risked undoing Trump’s second term and crippling the MAGA movement, perhaps forever.
Vance found himself caught up in the first stabs at de-escalation and peace. In April, he flew to Pakistan with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for a fruitless round of negotiations. He then found himself tied to the notorious “Memorandum of Understanding,” which turned out to be more a Disastrous Document of Confusion. Trump joked at the time that if the peace process failed, “I’m blaming J.D.”
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Yet, far from being sunk by the Iran imbroglio, Vance appears to have emerged from it as a MAGA hero. In Republican circles, he has found a third way: the man who opposed the war (which MAGA doesn’t like) yet remained loyal to the President (whom MAGA still love).
Last night, he tried to remind the audience of why they supported Donald Trump in the first place: “We were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous.”
He called Trump “the toughest SOB in American politics” – loud applause – and spoke elegantly about the birth of his fourth child and the future of America. He also had a useful clash with a protestor waving a Mexican flag: “Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I’ll buy you a plane ticket.” The crowd went wild at that.
It was the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and Vance evoked the name of his murdered friend in order to appeal for MAGA support through challenging times.
“Charlie hated war,” said Vance. “Whether it was Europe or Africa, the Middle East, he didn’t care. He just hated war. That was his view. Now, of course, there are people who love what we’ve done and people who don’t. I’m not here to litigate the disagreements between Charlie and some of the people that he disagreed with. But what I’m asking you to do is do what Charlie did. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.”
And that, essentially, is the Republican pitch for November: you may hate what we’ve done, but we still aren’t as crazy as the alternative. Let’s see if that message works in November and beyond.
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