Even at his own event, JD Vance can’t escape his rivalry with Marco Rubio.
As the vice president, 41, traveled to Iowa on Tuesday in support of Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, Vance’s own supporters at the event told The New York Times that the Republican nomination for the 2028 presidential race is very much still up in the air.
“I think Vance is great, but I think Rubio would be great, too,” Duane Lawrence, a 62-year-old retiree, told the Times.
“Marco Rubio’s a great alternative,” 68-year-old lumber industry retiree Jim Edmondson told the newspaper. “I like them both extremely well.”
“I’ll be honest with you. Between JD Vance and Marco Rubio, I love Marco Rubio,” said 67-year-old Cedar Rapids resident Merle Miller. “JD Vance, Marco Rubio would be a phenomenal team.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Vance for comment.
Despite early polls suggesting Vance as a clear frontrunner for the nomination, the Secretary of State has also become a major contender in President Donald Trump’s eyes.
Rubio, 54, has proven himself a competent instrument of the president throughout the second Trump administration, with his positive performance earning him additional responsibilities as of late.
Rather than Catholic convert Vance, Trump tasked Rubio with smoothing things over with Pope Leo XIV on a diplomatic trip to the Vatican this week.
The Secretary of State also filled in for White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday for the administration’s weekly press briefing amid Leavitt’s maternity leave.
Trump, 79, has reportedly asked those in his inner circle about how they’d compare Vance and Rubio as both contend for his coveted endorsement.
However, Vance has been on a bit of a sore streak.
The veep’s adamant efforts to campaign for conservative Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán ended in failure last month as the authoritarian leader conceded defeat to Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party won a supermajority of 138 of the nation’s 199 parliamentary seats.
Vance, who has expressed his uneasiness about the president’s war on Iran, was also sidelined from diplomatic relations after his peace talks with Tehran in Islamabad, Pakistan, last month bore no fruit in ending hostilities. Meanwhile, Rubio sat ringside with Trump at the president’s favorite sporting event in Miami.
Most embarrassingly, the Catholic convert said the pope should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology” in defense of Trump after the president attacked the pontiff as “weak on crime.”
Alysa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former White House Communications Director and a co-host of The View, said on Wednesday’s episode of the talk show that Vance’s chances for the 2028 nomination are dwindling fast.
“I think that every time Marco Rubio speaks, JD Vance is kind of in the fetal position,” Griffin said. “Because that is a much more formidable Republican candidate.”
