JD Vance might be unstoppable in 2028

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.RELATED: The Trump administration is cracking down on fraud Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesAhead 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.