Category: Vice president
‘Something historic’: CNN analyst GOBSMACKED by how Vance polls against Nikki Haley, others
The 2028 presidential election is 34 months away, and in that time, there are sure to be plenty of surprises. There are, however, already clear signs of who may ultimately make a bid for the White House — and how they might fare in the primaries.
CNN’s chief data analyst, Harry Enten, expressed surprise on Monday by how Vice President JD Vance performed in a recent poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters against former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nimarata “Nikki” Haley, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other prospects.
‘The rest of the field are like going around in go-karts.’
Enten alluded to prediction market odds indicating that Vance is “running well ahead of the field” and that “nobody else is even close.”
Polymarket puts Vance’s chance of becoming the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 at 54%. The site has the chances of the runner-up, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, securing the nomination at 9%. This high confidence in Vance’s chances is similarly expressed on the PredictIt site as well as on the federally regulated prediction market Kalshi, which suggests Vance and Rubio have a 48% and 10% chance of securing the nomination, respectively.
“JD Vance is like Mario Andretti, and Marco Rubio and the rest of the field are like going around in go-karts at this point,” said Enten. “That’s really what we are looking at. JD Vance is the clear, heavy favorite at this time.”
Enten noted that Vance’s staggering early lead reflected in the prediction markets “is not coming out of nowhere” and directed CNN talking head Sara Sidner’s attention to a poll conducted in October by the University of New Hampshire.
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Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images
The poll found that among those who plan to vote in the 2028 Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, 51% said they would vote for Vance; 9% said they would vote for Haley; 8% said they would vote for Gabbard; 5% said they would vote for Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders; 4% would vote for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.); and 3% each would vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Calgary-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who appears poised to run as the kind of Republican President Donald Trump crushed in the 2016 and 2024 GOP primaries, proved unable to capture 1% in the poll.
“Take a look here! JD Vance at 51%!” said Enten. “The next closest is Nikki Haley, who’s at 9 — who’s at 9! I mean, what is that? That’s 42 points ahead of the pack.”
“There’s a reason why he’s such a heavy favorite in the prediction market so far, because if you win the GOP primary in New Hampshire, chances are, you’re going to be the Republican nominee for president,” added Enten.
When asked by Sidner whether it was rare to see an early lead of this magnitude, Enten said, “I looked back. Hitting 50% plus in the early New Hampshire polls for a non-sitting president — JD Vance is the only one.”
“JD Vance is pulling off something historic at this time,” continued Enten.
While Vance’s early lead is unprecedented, the last five sitting vice presidents who ran for president all became their parties’ nominees.
A straw poll was also taken earlier this month at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest, where widowed CEO Erika Kirk endorsed the vice president.
Blake Neff, the producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” noted that Vance won the AmFest straw poll “by more than Donald Trump won the 2024 one we did two years ago.” Whereas 82.6% of respondents previously said they wanted to see Trump as the 2024 GOP nominee, 84.2% of respondents said they wanted to see Vance as their nominee in 2028.
The UNH poll that found a majority of likely GOP voters support Vance likewise found that there is a much closer race developing across the aisle.
Among those who plan to vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire, 19% of respondents say they would vote for former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; 15% would vote for California Gov. Gavin Newsom; 14% would vote for New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; 11% would vote for failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris; 8% would vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and 6% would vote for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
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Poll provides clear idea of who’s poised to sweep 2028 Republican presidential primary
Those keen to wrest control of the GOP from MAGA conservatives and to resume the course charted by the party prior to President Donald Trump’s 2016 election have their work cut out for them.
A new poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics revealed that Vice President JD Vance presently towers over his potential 2028 GOP primary opponents — including Calgary-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is poised to run as the kind of George W. Bush-era Republican that Trump crushed in the 2016 and 2024 primaries.
‘Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves.’
When asked whom they would vote for if the election were held this month, 57% of respondents said that they would support Vance; 9% said Secretary of State Marco Rubio; 7% said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; 4% said Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; 4% said former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nimarata “Nikki” Haley; 4% said Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; 1% said Ted Cruz; and 1% said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Two percent of respondents signaled they would vote for someone else, and 10% said they were unsure.
Sources close to the Trump administration recently told Politico that Rubio has telegraphed that he would support Vance if he chooses to run.
One source close to the White House noted that the “expectation is JD as [nominee] and Rubio as VP.”
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DeSantis, who secured less than 2% of the votes cast in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m not thinking about anything because I think we have a president now who’s not even been in for a year. We’ve got a lot that we’ve got to accomplish.”
The Florida governor may have taken the advice that James Blair, a former DeSantis staffer who now serves as Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, recently shared via Politico: “If you’re a Republican that wants to run in 2028 right now, you need to focus on keeping Republicans in power for 2026. I think the number one thing everybody can do is focus on the team and helping their team and not focus on themselves.”
“Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves,” added Blair.
Last month, the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll found that while DeSantis didn’t place in the top five Republican presidential primary candidates for 2028, he managed the fourth-highest favorability rating.
Vance placed first with a favorability rating among likely Republican primary voters of 77%; Rubio placed second with a 58% rating; Gabbard placed third with a 57% rating; DeSantis came fourth with a 56% rating; and Ramaswamy came fifth with 46%.
Cruz and Haley, meanwhile, were much further down the list with favorability ratings of 38% and 25%, respectively.
Gabbard, polling ahead of Cruz in the Saint Anselm College poll, has not made explicit any intention to run but indicated earlier this year on “The Megyn Kelly Show” that she “will never rule out any opportunity” to serve her country.
On the prediction website Polymarket, Vance is given a 55% chance of winning the primary.
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‘You know what really p**ses people off?’ Vance identifies what’s at heart of ‘populist resentment’ in Appalachia
Vice President JD Vance joined Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Make America Healthy Again summit on Wednesday in discussing the Trump administration’s revolution against the unworkable state of affairs and orthodoxies that have left so many Americans sick, censored, poor, and behind.
After the duo discussed President Donald Trump’s penchant for taking “a bulldozer to Overton windows,” Kennedy raised the matter of the dire health and social conditions in Appalachia, noting that Vance’s incredible success serves as a “tragic reminder of the lost potential of almost everybody else in Appalachia.”
‘Their loved ones are dying much sooner than everybody else.’
“It’s got the worst health data of any region in the country — the highest cardiac disease, the highest obesity, the highest diabetes, the highest stroke rates — but also addiction, alcoholism, and suicide,” said Kennedy.
Although dubbed a “golden child of Appalachia” by the HHS secretary, Vance emphasized his firsthand familiarity with the bleak conditions experienced by so many in the region, noting that he was hard-pressed to identify a single important male family figure who lived past the age of 70.
“You want to talk about, like, ‘populism’? And you want to talk about people being pissed off? Well, yeah, people are pissed off when they don’t have good jobs; and people are pissed off when things disappear and move overseas; and people are pissed off when they feel like, you know, other countries are being prioritized over the United States of America,” said Vance. “All of that is part of the populist resentment of the past 20 or 30 years in American politics.”
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Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
“But you know what really pisses people off?” continued the vice president. “When they realize that their loved ones are dying much sooner than everybody else.”
Life expectancy has long been lower and infant mortality higher in Appalachia than in the rest of the country.
Vance noted that while on the one hand, he feels guilty that so many of his fellow Appalachians have not enjoyed the opportunities for economic and familial stability that he has enjoyed, he also feels “a great sense of anger because we never should have gotten to the point that we are today, and the reason that we have is because of failed leadership — and it’s failed leadership over generations.”
The vice president stressed that one of the reasons he strongly supports Kennedy’s health initiatives is because therein lies a major opportunity to do right by Appalachian residents who have been “left behind by this country’s leadership.”
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