JD Vance aides privately brace for brutal 2028 primary fight as Fox News favorite senator threatens presidential run

JD Vance’s aides are privately bracing for a bruising 2028 primary fight as Republican senators begin circling Donald Trump’s heir.

The vice president’s advisers expect him to face challengers if he runs, and he is already moving to win back a GOP faction that has cooled on his prospects, the Washington Post reported.

Vance flew to Las Vegas at the end of August to address the Republican Jewish Coalition summit, where some have questioned his friendship with Tucker Carlson, who has faced allegations of anti-Semitism amid his criticism of the Iran war. 

The vice president invited Jewish conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg to the White House last week after the pair missed each other at the RJC event, then hosted a Shabbat dinner at the Naval Observatory on Friday ahead of Yom Kippur.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has attacked Vance’s record on Iran and his ties to Carlson, and said the party will have a ‘discussion’ about who succeeds Trump that he intends to be ‘part of.’

The jostling has left one Fox News favorite openly toying with a run. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, 74, followed Cruz to Iowa, the first state to hold a GOP nominating contest, and spoke at a major Republican gathering there on Saturday.

‘I’m planning on running for reelection,’ Kennedy told the Post. ‘But if I get tired of this place and/or if a bunch of goobers run for president, then I reserve the right to run.’

The folksy Louisianan, whose profile soared with his 2025 bestseller How to Test Negative for Stupid, had $18.6 million in his Senate campaign account at the end of June.

‘What was that song that the Judds sang, “Why Not Me?”‘ Kennedy said, referring to the 1984 country hit.

Vance took 44 percent in a recent Bowling Green State University/YouGov poll of GOP voters, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 21 percent. Rubio has said he has no plans to run and would back Vance, while Cruz took 3 percent.

Rubio lacks the political machine to match, with no network of aides built around a 2028 run, while Vance’s role as RNC finance chair gives him regular access to the party’s biggest donors. 

Citadel billionaire Ken Griffin, who gave more than $100 million to Republican-aligned groups during the 2024 cycle, said in July he would be ‘predisposed’ to back Rubio over Vance.

Vance’s odds on prediction market Kalshi slid from 43 percent in February to 31 percent in June as the Iran war lifted Rubio to 30 percent, but have since recovered to 45 percent with Rubio back down to 21 percent. 

An Emerson poll had Rubio just one point behind Vance in May, while a McLaughlin survey last month put Vance on 32 percent and Donald Trump Jr on 19 percent.

Vance’s doubts about the Iran war are already a target after Trump publicly conceded his No 2 was ‘maybe less enthusiastic’ about launching strikes in late February.

‘He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,’ Trump told reporters in March, while insisting the pair ‘get along very well on this.’

Asked about Vance on the Pod Force One podcast last week, Cruz said that the party was in the midst of an ideological battle: ‘Are we a small-government, free-market conservative party, or are we a big-government nanny-state party?’

‘That’s a really big, fundamental divide about what we believe … On foreign policy, are we an isolationist party? Do we want to just withdraw from the world? Or do we believe in American leadership?’

The Daily Mail has contacted the vice president’s office for comment. 

Florida Senator Rick Scott, one of the richest men in the Senate, insists he is not running but made clear which job he rates highest at a GOP dinner in New Hampshire on Friday.

‘The best job is to be the president,’ Scott said. ‘If that’s not available, be the governor. If that’s not available and you still have to do something, maybe be a US senator.’

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who scored 1 percent in the Bowling Green/YouGov poll, says he is 50-50 on a run and will not decide until after the midterms.

‘I think the Republican primary electorate’s probably more with me than with the rest of them,’ he told the Post.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who lost his May primary to a Trump-backed challenger, has not ruled out a run but says it is pointless to size up the field before the midterms.

‘Maybe we lose the majority, everybody’s down on Trump, then he gets impeached three times and everybody likes him again,’ Massie said. ‘Who knows?’