President Donald Trump, who turns 80 next month, has made no secret to his inner circle that the question of his political successor remains, in his view, very much unsettled — and Vice President JD Vance, despite holding the default front-runner position for 2028, is increasingly aware that Trump’s endorsement is not guaranteed.
According to interviews with more than a dozen people directly familiar with the relationship between the two men, Trump has developed a habit of interjecting a pointed question during conversations with aides and allies: Does JD Vance have what it takes to go all the way? He often answers his own question. He’s not so sure.
Trump’s Running Scorecard
The skepticism is not a sign that Trump is cutting Vance loose. The president continues to involve his vice president in major decisions, dispatches him on high-profile diplomatic missions, and publicly praises his loyalty. In a cabinet meeting this week, Trump compared Vance to Eliot Ness — the federal agent famous for dismantling Al Capone’s criminal operation — for his work rooting out fraud in Democratic-controlled states.
But privately, Trump keeps a running scorecard on Vance in a way that carries unusual weight given the stakes. As the would-be inheritor of the MAGA movement, Vance’s political fortunes are directly tied to the level of enthusiasm Trump shows for him — and Trump’s habit of privately polling aides and allies on whether they prefer Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become one of the most closely watched early power signals inside the Republican Party.
When conducting those informal polls, Trump frequently compares Vance’s record to his own. He has reminded allies that Vance never won a tough race without his help — Trump’s endorsement was decisive in Vance’s narrow 2022 Ohio Senate victory. He has raised the number of vacations Vance has taken, a subtle dig given that Trump himself rarely takes them. He has repeatedly brought up Vance’s initial opposition to going to war with Iran, including in front of Vance himself. “I’m more of a peace person than you are — but I had to do it,” Trump has told his vice president directly.
Trump has also zeroed in on optics. He has repeatedly referenced a moment from last spring in which Vance fumbled Ohio State’s national football championship trophy on the White House South Lawn, remarking that he is glad it wasn’t him holding it.
The Phone Problem
Beyond questions of substance and political toughness, Trump has taken note of Vance’s habits in meetings — specifically, that Vance frequently scrolls his phone and has developed a pattern of using social media to engage directly with his critics. Trump himself posts regularly to Truth Social but does not spend time replying to users online the way Vance does.
The behavior drew enough concern that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles recently advised Vance to pull back from social media, as did other West Wing officials, on the grounds that the online fighting was beneath the office of the vice president. Vance told associates he took a break for Lent.
Trump has also ribbed Vance in front of others for his tendency to insert himself into conversations. In November, at a breakfast for Republican senators, Trump openly mused about why Vance wasn’t more deferential — comparing him, with apparent admiration, to officials who serve under Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Why don’t you behave like that?” Trump asked Vance in front of the room. “JD doesn’t behave like that! JD butts into conversations! I want to have that for at least a couple of days. OK, JD?”
Loyalty Amid Tension
Through all of it, Vance has demonstrated the one quality Trump prizes above all others: loyalty. Despite his privately held reservations about the Iran war, Vance has publicly and consistently backed the president’s handling of the conflict. He has also supported the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people the administration describes as victims of political persecution — a move that has triggered open revolt among Republican lawmakers.
Trump’s longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio said the president selected Vance as his 2024 running mate precisely because of his appeal to the MAGA base. “He knew that, and that was exactly what he got,” Fabrizio said, describing Vance as “a MAGA warrior who would go out every day and fight for the things the president wanted.”
Donald Trump Jr. pushed back on the reporting of tension between the two men. “My father always brings up how JD is a savage and annihilates the fake news,” Trump Jr. said in a statement. “Interviews, rallies, podcasts — he shows up and performs and that’s what my father cares about.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement that Vance “has done a remarkable job” and that “there has been no vice president in history who has been more empowered.”
“He Came Up Empty”
Vance’s political tests have not always gone cleanly. On the international stage, he campaigned for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who subsequently lost his re-election bid. Domestically, Vance was asked by the White House political operation last summer to travel to the Indiana Statehouse to pressure Republicans into redrawing the state’s electoral maps. The lawmakers declined, and Trump later launched a largely successful retribution campaign against those who defied him. State Representative Ed Clere, a nine-term Republican from southern Indiana who voted against redistricting and is now running for mayor as an independent, put it plainly: “He came up empty in Indiana the same way that he came up empty in Hungary.” Clere added that Vance’s role in the redistricting fight “should be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks Trump will be able to pass the MAGA torch to Vance, or anyone else.”
The Iran war has placed Vance in a particularly difficult position. His political identity was built in part on skepticism of foreign military intervention, and his base includes voters who share those antiwar instincts. Tucker Carlson, a close ally who recommended Vance for the vice presidential slot, recently acknowledged that the war has put Vance in a “tough spot.”
Rubio Rising
Complicating the picture further is Rubio, whose relationship with Trump has visibly strengthened. Rubio travels with Trump frequently aboard Air Force One and has bonded with him during weekends in Florida. Trump has told people close to him how impressed he is with Rubio’s performance. At a Rose Garden dinner earlier this month, Trump openly polled his guests: “Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?” — making clear he was not endorsing either man.
Asked again this month in an Oval Office interview with Fortune about who is best positioned to carry his legacy, Trump was pointed. “Whoever gets this is going to be very important,” the president said. “And if you get the wrong person: disaster.” Vance was in the back of the room watching as Trump answered.
The 2028 Math
Despite the turbulence, Vance remains the front-runner by most measures. He serves as finance chair of the Republican National Committee, giving him direct access to the donor class. A Quinnipiac poll from last week showed 73 percent of Republican voters still approve of Trump’s job performance — a rising tide that broadly benefits Vance. On Polymarket, the prediction market platform that has attracted nearly half a billion dollars in trading volume on the 2028 race, Vance leads the Republican nomination market at 18% as the heir apparent to the Trump administration, with Rubio at 14% among the next closest competitors.
Last August, Trump himself told reporters that Vance was “most likely” to be his political heir: “In all fairness, he’s the vice president.” Since then, that framing has grown notably more conditional. The question Trump keeps posing to anyone who will listen — does Vance have what it takes? — may be the most consequential one in Republican politics heading into 2028. So far, nobody around Trump has heard him answer it with a definitive yes.
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