Republican governors, like Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, can't be ruled out of contention. Photo / Ricky Carioti, The Washington Post
Who is going to lead the Republican Party after a decade of United States President Donald Trump?
The Republican Party is grappling with that question now.
After Trump reimagined conservatism and won the White House twice, it’s likely the next leader of the GOP will keep Make America Great Again values.
In February, a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 71% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think GOP leaders should follow in Trump’s mould.
Here is how the early field is taking shape for the 2028 Republican primaries. This is our second ranking.
It’s early, and we leave room for surprises because - as some strategists have noted - at this time in the 2024 campaign, many Republicans had soured on Trump.
The standouts
Vice-President JD Vance: Vance has hewed close to Trump. He has defended the Administration’s policies, even when doing so requires him to reverse some of his positions.
And he has an aggressive, combative style: He brushed off a raging debate in his party about conspiracy theorists as a “purity test”, curses at his critics, and dismissed anger over Trump sharing a racist video that depicted Michelle and Barack Obama as apes.
At the State of the Union last week, Trump announced that Vance was leading a “war” on fraud that the President said was being perpetrated by immigrants.
Vance is a divisive figure; when he recently went to the Olympics in Italy, he was jeered at times.
But Republican voters seem to like what they are seeing: In a September YouGov poll, Vance topped the list of 2028 candidates Republicans said would consider voting for.
His future in GOP 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 put a condition on any possible presidential bid.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee,” he told Vanity Fair last year, “and I’ll be one of the first people to support him”.
But some Republicans aren’t convinced that he’s sitting it out, even if Vance were to run.
“Vance and Rubio are the one-two punch of the Republican universe,” said Stan Barnes, a former GOP state senator in Arizona and political consultant. “I do not think anyone else can compete.”
Rubio has presided over major international developments, like Gaza peace talks and ousting Venezuela’s president. Trump assigned him to help “run” that South American country.
Rubio has held additional jobs at various times during the second Trump Administration, including national security adviser and USAid director.
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.”
The middle of the pack
Ted Cruz: The Texas senator, who has run for president before, appears to be positioning himself as an alternative to Vance. While Vance says all views in the party should be welcome, Cruz is advocating for his party to ostracise MAGA pundit Tucker Carlson for interviewing a white nationalist who has said Adolf Hitler is “cool”.
“Every one of us has an obligation to stand up and stay it is wrong,” Cruz said.
He has also criticised the Trump Administration occasionally, calling its pressure campaign to cancel late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show “dangerous as hell”.
He has warned against Trump’s tariffs and recently said he couldn’t support one of the President’s picks for ambassador. Behind closed doors, he’s said Vance’s foreign policy views are dangerously isolationist.
Pete Hegseth: Trump’s Defence Secretary had a rough first year: He shared national security information with family, and a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about a military operation. An independent watchdog said Hegseth “created a risk to operational security” by using the app Signal for the operation.
Pentagon leadership seems constantly in turmoil, with ousted officials sometimes criticising Hegseth. He’s trying to boost the military budget by 50%, an increase so huge that some defence officials say they wouldn’t know how to spend it all.
He distanced himself from a September boat strike that also killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage, which military experts say may constitute a war crime.
His effort to punish Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, over a video failed - and was widely seen as giving the Arizona Democrat a launchpad for his own presidential ambitions.
However, Hegseth still has Trump’s support and remains a popular figure on the far-right.
“We don’t trust in woke,” he said recently. “We trust in God.”
Kristi Noem: Trump’s head of Homeland Security is the unapologetic face of the President’s unpopular tactics to deport undocumented immigrants.
She has transformed a department once focused on terrorism to be almost entirely about immigration enforcement, sometimes pushing things too far for the White House’s comfort.
She elevated the far-right figure Greg Bovino to lead a deportation surge in Minnesota, only to have Trump replace him after two US citizens were killed on his watch.
Noem was quick to blame the victims, despite video contradicting her claims; Trump softened his own language on what happened. The White House also recently stepped in to stop her plan to suspend TSA PreCheck.
But Noem, like Hegseth, has Trump’s support. And Democrats are calling for her impeachment, which may only serve to bolster her MAGA credentials.
Robert F. Kennedy jnr: Kennedy, Trump’s Health Secretary - who ran for president himself in 2024 - has rocked American public health.
Former surgeons-general who served in administrations of both parties warned he’s a danger, as he rolls back vaccine recommendations for children, a policy that is broadly unpopular.
But Kennedy is influencing the Republican Party and its leaders. Trump now regularly shares unfounded vaccine scepticism, and Kennedy has his own base in the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement.
Ron DeSantis: Florida’s fiery, socially conservative Governor is also a candidate whom Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they’d like to see in a primary, according to the YouGov poll.
DeSantis ran against Trump in the 2024 primaries and remains a fixture on Fox News and at conservative events. His run as governor ends in 2027, so he would have time to build momentum for a presidential run while out of public office.
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 the MAGA throne, saying recently of his desire to run: “That calling is there”.
The dark horses
Governors and senators: They’re not as high profile as members of Trump’s Administration, but Republican governors like Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin (who left office last month), Georgia’s Brian Kemp (who has pushed back on Trump’s claims about the 2020 election in his state) and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders (a former White House press secretary) are being watched by political insiders.
In the Senate, Cruz is getting a lot of attention, but Republicans say not to count out potential runs by Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky), a Trump critic on spending, Senator Tim Scott (South Carolina) or others.
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 (Republican-Louisiana) about this. “I’m not allowed to run.”
Plus, he will be 82 in 2028. But 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.
Mike Pence or another not-quite-MAGA candidate: Trump’s former vice-president briefly ran in 2024 as an alternative to Trump but quickly dropped out.
He has said he doesn’t plan to run, but he is amassing power at his think-tank that could influence the race.
Republican strategists expect someone in his mould, like Utah Governor Spencer Cox - or perhaps former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley - to run as an alternative to Trumpism.
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