Roll up, roll up for the 2028 presidential contest. I know we haven’t had the midterm elections yet, but the unusual mid-season Republican Party convention in Dallas next week is going to give Vice President JD Vance the chance to show the Maga faithful whether he’s made of the right stuff.
Vance remains the presumptive heir to President Donald Trump, but he’s looking vulnerable. A potential rival has emerged in the shape of self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. You would think the Iran stalemate would make Hegseth too embarrassed to run for America’s commander-in-chief but his friends believe tomorrow belongs to him.
Close advisers are discussing his prospects, according to multiple media reports. Although Hegseth has distanced himself from the rumors, the 2028 race has become tantalisingly open.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, could be a “submarine” candidate, but for now he seems content to play second fiddle to Vance. The hyperactive Hegseth, in contrast, has been purging the Pentagon and creating a new model army in his “warrior” image.
Trump boosted Hegseth this week by saying, “He’s doing a fantastic job”. Asked if he would support his defence secretary, he replied: “It’s very early to talk about that,” but added, “I think he’s a very good guy.” This was an important statement of confidence after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned on Monday. Driscoll was polite about Hegseth in public but reportedly warned Trump at a private White House meeting that Hegseth was causing havoc in the US armed forces.
Intriguingly, the claimed this week that Driscoll, a Yale Law School classmate of Vance, hopes to work on his chum’s campaign should he decide to run for President. Vance’s stated caution about the Iran war will be a marked point of contrast with Hegseth’s obligation to defend the conflict.
Vance vs Hegseth also opens up the intriguing prospect of a brain vs brawn contest. Vance would appear to be the flawed but clever one, while the tattooed Hegseth gives off the vibe of a buffoonish looks-maxxer. In fact, both men are Ivy-league educated military veterans. Their family life has taken different paths though.
In the Trump era, how much Republicans care about the private morality of candidates is moot, but not everyone is as Teflon-coated as the current President. If the GOP wants a standard-bearer with more traditional family values, Vance has the advantage.
Hegseth has been divorced twice, and according to reports in 2024, has admitted to multiple affairs. At the height of his messy divorce from his second wife in 2018, Hegseth’s mother sent an email accusing him of being “an abuser of women”. “That is the ugly truth,” she claimed, “and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years).” His mother, Penelope Hegseth, later told the she had regretted the email and apologised to him.
Hegseth, a former presenter, went on to marry his producer, Jennifer Rauchet, with whom he is believed to have started a relationship with while still married to his second wife. Rauchet is surprisingly active in Pentagon matters, attending meetings with her husband. All the better to keep an eye on him perhaps.
Vance, in contrast, is positively uxorious in his love for Usha, his first and only wife, whom he met at Yale. This recently sparked an unedifying spat over racism, after he said he wanted to take the left-wing candidate for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El Sayed, back in time to meet his hillbilly grandfather “Pawpaw”.
AES (as El Sayed is becoming known) shot back on X, “So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…” but Vance shut that debate down by saying indignantly, “Keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth.”
Vance is proud of his wife and children’s Indian heritage, while taking a strong anti-immigration stance. Within the Republican party, this has won him admirers, but requires a fair bit of finesse on his part to deal with trolls and racists.
More immediately threatening to Vance’s 2028 prospects is his enduring friendship with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News broadcaster. Support for Russia, hostility to Israel and tolerance of white supremacists have become Carlson’s defining characteristics. Since the launch of the Iran war, Carlson has split the Maga movement with his withering criticism of Trump.
Vance was put on the spot on Thursday over Carlson when he stepped in to replace Trump’s former press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the White House podium. The media treated him not as Trump’s mouthpiece, but as his potential replacement, lobbing a series of awkward questions about his alleged divided loyalties. Challenged over his relations with Carlson, Vance replied: “I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them.” But deepening rows in the Maga movement may make this position untenable.
Writing on X, the Maga influencer Laura Loomer asked: “Does @JDVance really want to allow Tucker to kill off his 2028 Presidential campaign?” She added bitingly: “If you don’t have the courage to disavow Tucker, you don’t have the courage to control the nuclear codes.”
Being Vice President is no guarantee of a free run at the presidency and Hegseth’s ambitious friends think Vance’s fortunes are waning.