JV Last has a nominee for dark horse GOP 2028 candidate and I confess that when I saw the numbers a couple of days ago I was shocked but the same thought passed through my mind. Oh lordy:
We can already see the contours of 2028 on the Republican side. The GOP nominee is likely to be one of five people.
- Donald J. Trump (more on this in a minute)
- JD Vance
- Marco Rubio
- Tucker Carlson
And the fifth? He’s my darkhorse pick to win. You’re going to love this . . .
- Donald J. Trump Jr.
Let’s start with DJTJ and work backwards. There have been a bunch of Republican primary polls over the past three months. Vance has been first in every one of them. Want to guess who’s been second or third in every single one of them? Donald Trump Jr.
He’s in double-digits in all but one of the polls and his head-to-head record against Rubio is 5–1–1. This—for a guy who has been invisible in the news, has never run for office, and has barely even nodded in the direction of the White House.
That’s a good starting position. There is an appetite among a significant percentage of Republican voters to take a look at DJTJ. Unlike Eric, or Ivanka, or any of the other Trump children, DJTJ is a plausible candidate. Republican voters are interested in him. But his position is even stronger than it looks. If DJTJ were to run, he’d inherit the Trump political organization and lists. He’d probably be able to finagle access to Trump’s campaign war chest,2 but even if he couldn’t, he’d have made enough money to self-fund.
DJTJ’s biggest advantage is that if he decides to run, Vance and Rubio will have their knees cut out from under them. Neither would be able to oppose him. A DJTJ candidacy would carry the explicit endorsement of Trump the Father, making it impossible for the vice president or secretary of state to contest the race without becoming un-personed. Challenging Don Jr. would turn them into enemies of the people.
Who could plausibly challenge Trump Junior? Tucker Carlson is the obvious answer. Tucker pulls surprisingly small numbers when he’s included in the field. But he has his own media company and he’s one of the most gifted talkers on the planet. That’s also his liability. Tucker has a long list of positions he’s taken over the years. DJTJ is closer to a blank slate. Trump Junior is just a mascot for the MAGA lifestyle brand. As such, I suspect he’d be amenable both to the Trump base and to the anti-anti establishment types—or at least more amenable to them than Tucker would be.
A lot depends upon Trumps status with the base by 2028. Very often lame ducks actually rise toward the end, as their voters start to feel a little nostalgia for the outgoing president. Perhaps this would bounce back on Jr. (And who knows? Trump voters aren’t very bright, they might just think it’s their guy running again!)
Last goes into detail about how this might go down and it’s super interesting. He thinks that unless Vance can get everyone else to drop out he has no chance. And basically none of the other ones do either. I agree with that but for different reasons. I think anyone closely associated with Trump is not going to win. But if Trump does get a little bounce in his last year, I’d guess Jr would be the most likely insider to wrest the nomination away from an outsider governor or businessman.
He points out rightly that the Trump grift is so incredibly lucrative that it’s hard to believe they would voluntarily give it up. If the old guy can’t run why not Jr?
Now go ahead and have that stiff drink. The MAGA base may love Junior but he isn’t his father. I think he has about the same chance of winning the general in 2028 as George Santos. So bring it on.