US Vice-President JD Vance has rarely distanced himself from President Donald Trump since taking office in January. Photo / John McDonnell, for The Washington Post
Who is going to take on the mantle after United States President Donald Trump leaves the White House? The Republican Party will soon grapple with that question - if it isn’t already.
After nearly a decade of Trump dominating and reimagining conservatism, there’s little doubt that the next leader of the Republican Party will need to keep Maga values.
Here is how the early field is taking shape for the 2028 Republican primaries. It leaves room for surprises because, as some strategists have noted, at this time in the 2024 campaign, Republicans had soured on Trump.
Vice-President JD Vance: Vance has done little to set himself apart from Trump. He has defended the Administration’s policies, even when it requires reversing some of his positions. He has taken a leading role in fights with Democrats, including on the government shutdown and attacking critics of Charlie Kirk after the conservative activist was killed, part of a campaign that detractors described as an effort to crack down on free speech.
Republican voters seem to like what they are seeing: In a September YouGov poll, he tops the list of 2028 candidates they would consider voting for. His future in Republican politics could be a long one. At 41, he’s the youngest candidate on this list and one of the youngest vice presidents in history.
Marco Rubio: Trump’s Secretary of State has presided over major international news: the Gaza peace talks, bombing Iran (which initially upset some in Trump’s base) and controversial cuts to foreign aid. Rubio isn’t top of voters’ minds in early polls about 2028, but Trump frequently mentions him as a successor. “Marco’s great,” Trump said, adding of Vance and Rubio: “I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two. I think if they formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”
Donald Trump jnr: Trump’s eldest son has never held public office, but he is an adviser and confidant to his father. He seems to be making the case that he’s the rightful heir to Maga, saying recently of his desire to run: “That calling is there. I think my father has truly changed the Republican Party. I think it’s the America First party now, the Maga party, however you want to look at it.”
Ron DeSantis: Florida’s socially conservative, fiery Republican Governor is also a candidate Republican-leaning voters say they’d consider in a primary, according to YouGov. He ran against Trump in the 2024 primaries and remains a fixture on Fox News and at conservative events. His run as Governor of Florida ends in 2027, so he will have to build momentum for a presidential run while out of public office.
Ted Cruz: The Senator from Texas was the last major candidate left standing against Trump in the 2016 GOP nominating contest. Cruz has since become all-in on Trump but has also been differentiating himself in small yet notable ways. He criticised the Trump Administration’s threats to cancel late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over protected speech as “dangerous as hell”. He has warned against Trump’s tariffs and recently said he can’t support one of the President’s controversial picks for ambassador.
Trump himself? Trump has said he’d “love to” run for a third term. He can’t, though, because a president cannot serve more than two terms. “The Constitution is very clear about that,” said Josh Chafetz, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University. Even if he wanted to start a constitutional crisis to stay in power, Trump may not have the backing of some of his most loyal supporters in Congress.
“It’s pretty clear,” Trump told reporters after talking privately with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) about this. “I’m not allowed to run.” Plus, his 2024 win made him the oldest person elected president, and he will be 82 in 2028. Trump’s musings about another term aren’t something to entirely discount as he pushes to amass presidential power in a way no modern president has.
Kristi Noem: Trump considered Noem for vice-president when she was Governor of South Dakota. She now leads the Department of Homeland Security, where she is responsible for carrying out his mass deportation agenda. It has become one of Trump’s best-known - and controversial - policies, and Noem has owned it.
She has toured the desolate Salvadoran megaprison where his Administration shipped alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. “If you’re here illegally, you’re next,” she has said. She may be best known nationally for writing about how she fatally shot the family dog.
Robert F. Kennedy jnr: Trump’s controversial Health Secretary has shaken American public health, with former surgeons-general who served in administrations of both parties warning he’s a danger, some of the nation’s premier public health experts resigning in protest of his vaccine-sceptic policies and Republican senators questioning his commitment to keeping vaccines easy to get.
Kennedy and his supporters say that is by design. And the former Democratic (and independent) presidential candidate is influencing the Republican Party and its leaders; Trump now regularly shares unfounded vaccine scepticism.
Tulsi Gabbard: Like Kennedy, the director of national intelligence also ran for president as a Democrat. Trump has long been sceptical of the intelligence community after it determined Russia tried to help him win in 2016, and Gabbard, who oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies, purged - and, her critics say, undermined - the community she leads.
This northern summer, she announced she had uncovered a “treasonous conspiracy” led by former President Barack Obama to harm Trump’s first term, an allegation that lacks concrete evidence and seemed designed to help distract from Maga uproar about Jeffrey Epstein.
Spencer Cox or another not-quite-Maga candidate: Utah’s Governor is the least likely potential candidate on this list to get traction because he approaches Republican politics differently than Trump does.
“We just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be,” he said after Kirk was killed in his state. Republican strategists expect someone like Cox - or perhaps former UN ambassador Nikki Haley or even former vice-president Mike Pence - to run for president as an alternative to Trumpism.
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