{"id":2582811,"date":"2026-03-23T09:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/underestimating-jd-vance\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T09:40:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:40:05","slug":"underestimating-jd-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/underestimating-jd-vance\/","title":{"rendered":"Underestimating JD Vance"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">6<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Funderestimating-jd-vance%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2582811&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article argues that JD Vance is being underestimated as a potential 2028 Republican presidential nominee after months of him being viewed as the likely consensus pick. It notes that President Donald Trump has shown interest in Marco Rubio as an option who might be more comfortable with an iran-war stance than Vance, raising questions about whether Trump will cede influence in the scramble for the nomination. Some Republicans worry about a repeat of the Democrats\u2019 leadership handoff and there are even reports that Vance, whose wife is expecting their fourth child, remains undecided about running.<\/p>\n<p>Despite uncertainties, Vance remains a powerful figure within the party: he is the sitting vice president and the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, giving him access to donors and the party\u2019s fundraising machine, and he is expected to have a larger campaign presence this fall than anyone besides Trump.Polls still show him among the front-runners, often leading Rubio by a wide margin in national surveys, with RealClearPolitics averages suggesting a substantial lead. The piece also highlights vance\u2019s strong debate performance when he previously ran as Trump\u2019s running mate and his ability to navigate hostile interviews, which some outlets have credited as a sign of political resilience.<\/p>\n<p>A central thread is the Iran war\u2019s impact on Republican prospects: if the economy improves and international tensions ease, Vance could be well-positioned to ride the windfall; if not, he would face the same headwinds as any other Republican contender. Vance has suggested there could be daylight with Trump on Iran policy, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/government-employees-sue-biden-yellen-to-force-override-of-debt-ceiling\/\" title=\"Gov&#039;t workers sue Biden, Yellen to lift debt ceiling.\">outcome remains uncertain<\/a>. Ultimately, the article argues that Vance may be more competitive than many observers currently believe, tho much depends on foreign policy developments, the economy, and intra-party dynamics surrounding Trump and Rubio.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Underestimating JD Vance<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2521911\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>There is a growing trend toward underrating Vice President <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/jd-vance\/\">JD Vance<\/a>&rsquo;s chances of winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination after months where he was the consensus pick.<\/p>\n<p>President <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\">Donald Trump<\/a> has <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2028-election\/iran-marco-rubio-trump-2028-succession-jd-vance-rcna261794\">reportedly perked up<\/a> his interest in Secretary of State <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/marco-rubio\/\">Marco Rubio<\/a> as an alternative, for whom selling the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/iran\/\">Iran<\/a> war is a more comfortable fit than for Vance.&nbsp;If Trump remains unpopular, some Republicans don&rsquo;t want a repeat of the Democrats&rsquo; failed attempt to pass the baton from then-President <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/joe-biden\/\">Joe Biden<\/a> to then-Vice President <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/kamala-harris\/\">Kamala Harris<\/a>. There are even <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/wgme.com\/news\/nation-world\/jd-vance-hasnt-made-up-his-mind-about-running-in-2028-report-gop-congress-iran-israel-middle-east-joe-kent\">reports<\/a> that Vance, whose wife Usha is expecting their fourth child, is undecided about whether to run for president in the next election.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4498859\/california-democrats-overwhelmingly-favor-gavin-newsom-over-kamala-harris-2028-poll\/\">California Democrats overwhelmingly favor Newsom over Harris for 2028: Poll<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4498339\/rand-paul-presidential-campaign-2028\/\">Rand Paul sounds like he&#8217;s running for president<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/4493511\/court-allows-doj-proceed-appeal-law-firm-executive-orders\/\">Court allows DOJ to proceed with appeal over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-allows-doj-to-proceed-with-appeal-over-law-firm-executive-orders\/\" title=\"Court allows DOJ to proceed with appeal over law firm executive orders\">law firm executive orders<\/a><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>Every bad donor interaction or Vance joke that doesn&rsquo;t land or a controversial podcaster comment he doesn&rsquo;t denounce becomes magnified.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s true: the Iran war scrambles Republican electoral prospects this year and beyond; the mercurial Trump will be reluctant to cede the spotlight and will matter a great deal in the 2028 primaries; Vance&rsquo;s family situation could dissuade him from a <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >grueling presidential race<\/a> where he will be under fire from all directions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I remember when we decided to run for vice president, I said, &lsquo;Honey, I really want to have a fourth kid.&rsquo; And she said, &lsquo;Well, you can become vice president, or you can have a fourth baby,&rsquo;&rdquo; Vance quipped during a speech in Michigan last week. &ldquo;But, ladies and gentlemen, I am persuasive because I got both!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Vance&rsquo;s persuasion will prevail once again. Despite his loss of ground in the prediction markets, he is still the sitting vice president under a president who is constitutionally ineligible to run in 2028. He is also the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, giving him unprecedented access to donors and the GOP money machine, and he will be a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4456952\/midterm-elections-give-vance-chance-build-capital\/\">bigger presence on the campaign trail<\/a> this fall than anyone in the administration other than Trump himself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Vance is a heavy favorite in the polls, beating Rubio by 29.1 points in the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolling.com\/polls\/president\/republican-primary\/2028\/national\"><em>RealClearPolitics <\/em>average<\/a>. That&rsquo;s only a little less than Trump&rsquo;s lead over Gov. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/ron-desantis\/\">Ron DeSantis<\/a> (R-FL) in mid-July 2023. Surveys for the <em>Daily Mail <\/em>and Emerson College have Vance breaking 50% nationally.&nbsp;&ldquo;If JD Vance runs for president, he&rsquo;s going to be our nominee, and I&rsquo;ll be one of the first people to support him,&rdquo; <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-2\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-2\">Rubio&nbsp;told&nbsp;<em>Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;<\/em>last year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These polls frequently include Donald Trump Jr., who takes anywhere from 9% to 27% of the vote. The president&rsquo;s son was a big booster of Vance for vice president in 2024. &ldquo;I exerted 10,000% of my political capital,&rdquo; he told Tucker Carlson, who is also included in some of the 2028 polls, on election night. &ldquo;I may get a favor from my father in like, 2076. I used it all.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s possible that, if anything, the polls are underestimating Vance&rsquo;s support.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If the economy recovers and the international situation stabilizes, Vance will be better positioned than anyone else to inherit the windfall. If the outlook on one or both fronts remains dire, any other Republican who runs in 2028 will face the same headwinds.<\/p>\n<p>Iran has actually shown that Vance can manage <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/03\/13\/jd-vance-skeptical-iran-operation-00826780\">some daylight with Trump <\/a>while remaining a team player and in the president&rsquo;s good graces. That won&rsquo;t necessarily shield Vance from political consequences if the war goes awry or lasts longer than expected. The vice president himself has vowed, &ldquo;I said this before the conflict started, I&rsquo;ll repeat it again. There&rsquo;s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But if Vance turns out to be right, he can benefit politically.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If the Iran war is still a top issue heading into 2028, it is not clear that it will benefit Rubio any more than Vance, even if the immediate political impact of Operation Epic Fury has been more favorable to the secretary of state. Republicans&rsquo; best alternative in that case might be someone from outside the administration entirely, much as Democrats probably wish they went with one of their Rust Belt governors rather than replacing Biden with Harris.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s the bigger problem with the Vance vs. Rubio stories, aside from the fact that both men have repeatedly <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4421606\/jd-vance-marco-rubio-stick-togther-2028-election-speculation\/\">downplayed this dynamic<\/a>: Other than a scandal or Trump siding against his vice president, there is no obvious set of circumstances where political conditions get bad enough to make Vance vulnerable in a primary but good enough for Rubio to be favored in a general election.<\/p>\n<p>We have been through this before. When Trump picked Vance as his running mate, the choice was greeted with head-scratching outside of certain factions of the GOP. Democrats were confident Vance was too &ldquo;weird.&rdquo; They circulated his podcast comments about childless cat ladies. They expected Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to best him in their debate.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4491377\/vance-north-carolina-pray-for-troops-iran-operation-epic-fury\/\"><strong>VANCE ASKS NORTH CAROLINA TO PRAY FOR THE TROOPS, BUT DOESN&rsquo;T DENY CAUTIONING TRUMP AGAINST IRAN WAR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Instead, Vance won the vice presidential debate in the most one-sided fashion of any since Ross Perot&rsquo;s running mate James Stockdale wandered on to the stage. Vance similarly dominated in hostile media interviews, prompting rapper Nicki Minaj to label him an &ldquo;assassin&rdquo; in a comment she instantly regretted making to Erika Kirk. Vance proved himself an asset on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<p>History won&rsquo;t necessarily repeat itself, and a lot is outside Vance&rsquo;s control. But he is probably being underestimated right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vance underestimated as Trump eyes Rubio for 2028<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2659,"featured_media":2582812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP26056064653865.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[21130,76365,73988,5894],"class_list":["post-2582811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-conservatism","tag-hillbilly_elegy","tag-jd_vance","tag-politics"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP26056064653865.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2582811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2582815,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582811\/revisions\/2582815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2582812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2582811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2582811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2582811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}