Conventional wisdom suggests that the 2028 Republican primary is shaping up to be a chaotic affair. Supposedly, it’s anyone’s game, as Vice President JD Vance is weaker than he appears, while potential adversaries, including Marco Rubio, are gaining an advantage.

This view is untethered from reality. The fact is that the 2028 Republican nomination is Vance’s to lose. The faulty prevailing opinion has calcified for two reasons: a poor reading of history and a deficient understanding of the political landscape.

JD Vance has had one of the fastest rises to the executive branch in modern American political history.

“George H.W. Bush is the only sitting vice president in the last 190 years (since 1836) to be elected president,” an MS Now analyst recently wrote. He is not alone: the “190 years” number has been trotted out by those who contend that Vance stands little chance of winning the presidency in 2028.

On its face, this line of argument should be ignored because comparing the politics of 1840s America to the present is a fool’s errand: The country has changed significantly in that time, as has the party system.

Looking to history

But even if one disregards this, another historical fact emerges: For much of American history, the vice presidency wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss,” to borrow an infamous line from Vice President John Nance Garner. It was mostly used to balance a presidential ticket geographically and had little power on its own, as the office was typically a capstone to one’s career rather than a stepping stone to the presidency.

Particularly ambitious politicians instead sought the position of secretary of state, which often acted as the president’s chief adviser. Every commander in chief from Thomas Jefferson through John Quincy Adams served as secretary of state, as did Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and a host of individuals who lost the presidency.

Andrew Jackson broke this mold by picking Van Buren, his ideological successor, to be his vice president, as Jackson was specifically seeking to undertake a long-term political revolution. He was the only president to select his second-in-command for such a purpose — that is, until Donald Trump picked JD Vance.

Since Van Buren won the presidency in 1836, only three incumbent vice presidents sought to succeed a two-term president of their own party: Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Al Gore. Nixon and Gore lost razor-close contests. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and would likely have been president had the infamous butterfly ballot not confused a few thousand voters in liberal Palm Beach County into voting for arch-conservative Pat Buchanan.

Out of the remaining incumbent vice presidents who ran, two did so after one-term presidents suddenly dropped out — Hubert Humphrey after Lyndon Johnson and Kamala Harris after Joe Biden — and were therefore forced to run abbreviated campaigns. The third, John Breckinridge, ran in the four-way 1860 election in which his party was split in two, a situation that’s not analogous to today. The final incumbent vice president, John Adams, ran after George Washington and won, but he did so under an entirely different electoral system.

The tally of incumbent vice presidents running after a two-termer of their same party is two large wins (Van Buren and Bush) and two incredibly narrow losses (Nixon and Gore). The wins tally jumps to three if Adams is included.

This is hardly a reason for Vance to be concerned with history being a hindrance to his hopes of winning the White House. Plus, neither Nixon nor Gore was running as specific ideological inheritors of their respective presidents’ legacies. Gore arguably ran away from Bill Clinton, while Van Buren and Bush were successors — and they both won.

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Ahead of the pack

“It’s anybody’s to win” is a second piece of conventional wisdom stated without evidence. Polling on the GOP 2028 nomination so far reveals an indisputable picture: Vance is dominating his competition. The RealClearPolitics average has him at around 40% — which is 20% ahead of his nearest competitor. A recent Echelon poll had Vance similarly ahead, as have a bevy of others.

Only a recent Atlas poll shows Marco Rubio leading Vance. But there are numerous reasons to question that poll, from the sudden massive swing to Rubio to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leading the pack among Democrats.

In the Trump era, political analysts have grown accustomed to one man dominating the Republican Party’s primary contests. But Vance’s dominance two years out is also historically stronger than most previous nominees not named Trump.

In 1986, although George H.W. Bush was leading, he was stuck at 29%, in front of Senator Howard Baker by only 13%. In 1998, his son George W. Bush led with 30%, only 16% ahead of Elizabeth Dole, who had not yet been elected senator. Other than Trump, no Republican has so clearly led the field in the history of modern presidential primary elections — and Vance has done this without a definitive Trump endorsement, which would likely send his numbers even higher.

Then there are Vance’s prospective challengers. Though Secretary of State Marco Rubio often places second, the secretary has repeatedly ruled out running against Vance, saying at one point, “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him.” The specificity of Rubio’s statements, seen with his and Vance’s repeated expressions of praise for each other, would make any Rubio candidacy extraordinarily difficult.

Running now would destroy Rubio’s relationship with Vance and his wing of the party, and arguably with some in the administration. Rubio would need to explain why he changed his mind on Vance, and he would also likely have to resign from office a year and a half early to campaign. Many outside observers insist that a race between the two is on, but that seems based on a desperation for clicks — or a desperation to stop Vance — rather than on real evidence.

The secretary of state is an extremely effective politician, is careful with his words, and is incredibly experienced. He will make a phenomenal president. But if he wanted to run in 2028, he would not have said what he said.

What about the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.? He also polls rather well, usually placing third but sometimes second. The younger Trump, like Rubio, has been at the center of endless presidential chatter for months. In the past few weeks alone, multiple articles from outlets as diverse as the Los Angeles Times and the American Conservative have talked up a Trump Jr. candidacy.

But there is one person not talking up a Trump Jr. presidential run: Trump Jr. Like Rubio, he has explicitly and repeatedly made clear he will not run against Vance. He has expressed frustration at the constant speculation, at one point angrily castigating a Mediaite article, and following it up with another condemnation of the idea on X.

Other candidates known to voters, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, are unlikely to catch fire. If Americans wanted to support them, they would already be polling well.

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Staying the course

Of course, there is the possibility that Vance may not run. Those who are desperate for him to stay away from the White House have seized on reporting that Vance would wait to decide to run until after the summer, when his fourth child is born. His desire to wait to make a decision is eminently reasonable; any parent can attest to the change a new child brings, particularly if it is one’s fourth.

But Vance’s statement was also entirely standard. He will be going on a book tour this summer, a perfect soft launch for an unofficial candidacy — unofficial because he would never announce his run before the midterm elections, and there are still two and a half years left in his term.

Until he formally announces, which will likely happen next year, Vance will continue doing what he’s been doing: supporting the president and the administration, fundraising for Republican candidates, and dominating the polls.

It is easy to forget that JD Vance has had one of the fastest rises to the executive branch in modern American political history. Even Barack Obama, who seemed to ascend quickly to the presidency, followed a relatively traditional political path: state senator to senator to president over the course of 12 years. Vance, by contrast, won a U.S. Senate race in 2022 and then the vice presidency only two years later. Now he is the obvious ideological successor to two-termer Donald Trump.

The future is never certain. But in our era of shocking twists, too many have been primed to expect the unexpected. Sometimes reality is obvious: JD Vance is the clear front-runner for the 2028 Republican nomination.

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in The American Mind.