There seems to be a consensus emerging that J.D. Vance is going to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2028. It’s extremely early to be making such forecasts — we’re two years out from the Iowa caucuses — although it’s a plausible outcome. But that has led to a prediction by many that Vance simply could not win the general election and become president. Allow me to pre-register an idea: Of course he could win.
I don’t want to dwell on the nomination politics at this point because there’s so much in flux right now in the party. It’s certainly reasonable to think that the sitting vice president will become the presidential nominee (as happened in 2000 and 2024), but we really don’t know how Donald Trump’s health and political standing within his party will fare over the next two years, and all of that could very well affect Vance’s prospects. But let’s just accept Vance’s nomination as a given for the moment. What does that general election look like?
I’ve recently read all sorts of reasons that Vance could never get elected in November of 2028. He can’t win, I’m told, because the office of the vice presidency is a drag, because he has all of Trump’s bigotry (maybe more) but none of his ability to connect with audiences, because his party is fractured, because he’s a terrible speaker, or because he’s just flat out unlikable. These things may well be true; that doesn’t mean they’ll prevent him from becoming president. In general, people place far too much emphasis on the identity and personality of the candidate and fail to acknowledge two important lessons: 1) Modern presidential elections are incredibly close, and; 2) Disqualifying candidate behavior isn’t necessarily disqualifying.
On that first point, here’s the Republican nominee’s share of the popular vote in every presidential election since 2000:
There are, of course, many ways to scale that y-axis, but in general, this isn’t a lot of variation! The low was John McCain with 45.6, the high was George W. Bush with 50.7. That is, Bush’s massive re-election victory and decisive mandate to continue the War On Terror and remake Social Security was just five points higher than McCain’s humiliating repudiation by the electorate when his party was being blamed for waging an unpopular war and utterly destroying the economy. Meanwhile, the Republican only broke 50% in one of the seven elections depicted above, but took the White House in four of them. There is every reason to believe that Vance, should he become the nominee, would land within the range depicted above.
And on the second point…
