New Report Reveals JD Vance’s Unexpected Thoughts On A 2028 Run — And It’s Not What You Think

It’s long been assumed that Vice President JD Vance will run for president in 2028 as the heir apparent to Donald Trump on the Republican side. But a new report suggests that maybe he won’t.

According to CNN, the vice president is considering that a 2028 presidential bid might not be in the cards.

Vance “has given serious consideration to not running for president in 2028,” CNN said, citing “people close to” the vice president.

New: JD Vance has given serious consideration to not running for president in 2028.

While Vance has yet to make up his mind, interviews with roughly a dozen allies & advisers reveal a vice president wrestling with his political ambitions, the fracturing of the MAGA coalition and the demands of fatherhood. They described him as deeply committed to rebuilding the movement that won in 2024 but uncertain over whether he should be the one to lead it.

Lots of new reporting in this piece w/ @scontorno https://t.co/rLkMzaBxTT

— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) November 13, 2026

“Interviews with roughly a dozen allies and advisers reveal a vice president wrestling with his political ambitions, the fracturing of the MAGA coalition and the demands of fatherhood,” CNN said. “They described him as deeply committed to rebuilding the movement that won in 2024 but uncertain over whether he should be the one to lead it.”

Vance, the day after the election, sent a social media post looking at the loss, which stated outright that the Iran war was the main reason that the party lost.

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was “composition”—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”

Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel

Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)

In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.

If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.

But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.

I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 4, 2026

There were indications in the article that Vance, who served two years in the U.S. Senate before he was elected vice president, could run for president further in the future, if not in 2028.