Republicans Should Not Run JD Vance in 2028

A tough but fair analysis in the spirit of my old pieces about Biden.

(Credit for the voiceover for this article goes to the great Samuel Lipson)

Of the two-and-a-half years in which I have written for this newsletter, the takes that I am the proudest of are my early, repeated, and correct assertions that Joe Biden should not have run for a second term in 2024. I did so while knowing that it went squarely against the appeal I had with liberals, many of whom had followed me after 2022 only hoping to hear why Democrats were always going to win. They did not like my arguments, and they made their dislike very clear. But in spite of all of the hate this view received, it ended up being completely right. In its spirit, I have decided to conduct a similar analysis of our current ruling party’s presumptive nominee.

For all of the noise journalists have made about never again repeating the mistakes they made during the 2024 election, they are missing a strikingly similar case of arrogance and ineptitude in today’s Republican Party. As with Joe Biden in 2023, Vice President JD Vance’s standing and record provides no indication that he will be capable of accomplishing the basic tasks required for a Republican candidate to win in 2028. While the causes of this may not be as unfixable as Biden’s age problem, they are consistent enough to make any remedies unlikely. And, just as was the case with Biden, there are real alternatives sitting in the wings who stand to fix the problems Vance presents with little to no downside.

I recognize that this may be an unorthodox comparison. Individually, the Joe Biden of 2023 and the JD Vance of 2025 could not be more different. But at their core, their presidential ambitions come from the same kind of self-interested arrogance, will be furthered by the same kind of sycophancy, and bring the same problems politically. Just as I said about Biden two years ago, here’s why a Vance 2028 campaign is a completely unnecessary risk for everyone involved.

JD, the Future of the GOP, and the “Only Trump” Voter Problem

To understand the problems facing JD Vance as a potential national candidate, you need to begin with the greatest accomplishment of Donald Trump’s political career: his reshaping of the political map in 2024. In his triumphant comeback bid, Trump finally put together the real, honest-to-God coalition of the disaffected that countless past populist campaigns, including his own, had failed to build. He won new voters among all demographics, age groups, and walks of life, all of whom were united by one shared characteristic: low political engagement.

These tuned-out voters were Trump’s electoral ace in the hole. They were what allowed him to win a small popular-vote plurality and a decisive electoral college majority despite his failure at the basic tasks of a traditional political campaign. They also stand to be incredibly frustrating for those on the right hoping to build a durable national majority, a fact evidenced by a simple look at the other races on the ballot in 2024. Last year, Democrats won four Senate races in states that Trump won at the presidential level. In almost every instance, their victory was due to low-engagement pro-Trump voters either voting Democratic down ballot or just skipping non-presidential races entirely. That latter phenomenon was particularly debilitating for Republicans; in fact, two of these four Senate Democrats won their races despite receiving fewer total votes than Kamala Harris.

This problem was far from limited to the nation’s swing states. Across the entire country, the more politically tuned-out and new to the Republican coalition a Trump voter was, the less likely they were to vote for non-Trump Republicans. It would not be an exaggeration in any sense to say that the party’s ability to contend nationally in 2028 depends on its ability to either bring these voters out for a new nominee or find another bloc to replace them with. It would also not be an exaggeration to say that JD Vance is one of the worst people you could task with either objective.