Marco Rubio is vowing not to challenge Vice President J.D. Vance for the Republican nomination, a decision that appears to preclude the secretary of state from launching a 2028 White House bid. But many GOP insiders believe that commitment is less ironclad than it seems.
Stoking skepticism of Rubio’s denials has been his recent assertion of influence inside President Donald Trump’s Cabinet: torpedoing the Russia-friendly peace accord White House diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff tried to force on Ukraine, running point on Venezuela following U.S. military action to facilitate the arrest of strongman Nicolás Maduro, and addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference. Also sparking speculation that Rubio is keeping his options open is the existence of a political nonprofit group founded and run by close political advisers.
America 2100 was founded in 2023, at the beginning of Rubio’s third term as a Florida senator, by Mike Needham, a top political counselor and his former chief of staff. The 501(c)4 organization’s slogan—“Ensuring the next century is an American century”—is similar to the secretary’s 2016 presidential campaign motto. Since circulating videos in the fall of 2024 to bolster the Trump-Vance campaign, America 2100 has gone dormant. Per its latest Internal Revenue Service filing, the group had banked just under $3 million, a paltry sum.
But that the group continues to exist has caught the attention of some veteran Republican operatives. America 2100 could function as an initial launchpad for a Rubio 2028 bid should circumstances change—for instance, in the event Vance doesn’t run for president. The organization might also offer a discreet way for GOP donors who hope the secretary changes his mind about seeking the White House to express support, as 501(c)4s do not have to disclose contributors. (America 2100 declined to comment.)
“This is like planning for a rainy day,” Republican consultant Jeff Burton told The Dispatch. “At this point it doesn’t appear likely that he would run against J.D. Vance. But a lot can happen in the next couple of years. Things change fast in politics and it’s always better to be prepared.”
“There’s going to be a large contingency of donors who prefer Rubio to Vance,” a longtime Republican strategist added, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “That does not mean Rubio will run—but it does mean there will be a market for him to run whether he chooses to do so or not. And so it only makes sense there would exist a receptacle for people to go who just walk in the door.”
With Trump, 79, barred from reelection because of constitutional term limits, Vance’s and Rubio’s emergence as the leading Republicans to succeed him in 2028 reveals the extent to which the outgoing president has altered the GOP during his decade-plus atop the party.
For nearly three decades after Ronald Reagan’s presidency, traditional conservatives made up the majority of the Republican coalition. They were (and are) partial to small government, free markets and free trade, and a foreign policy that favored interconnected alliances led by Washington, with the GOP platform reflecting that agenda. Heading into the nation’s 61st presidential election, conservative populists have firmly taken the reins of power from the Reaganites.
Big government industrial policy is in, as is skepticism of financial markets, international trade, and foreign policy that revolves around the post-World War II alliances the U.S. built and nurtured for so long. To varying degrees, Vance and Rubio reflect this newer, Trump-inflected populist GOP—and their domination of the 2028 discussion on the right suggests the previous version of the party isn’t returning anytime soon (although traditional conservatives remain as a robust minority).
“Rubio and Vance represent different shades of the post-Trump, populist domination of the Republican primary base,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., said in an interview with The Dispatch. “The fact that they are the two people who are being talked about as the leading contenders demonstrates that … a return to pre-Trumpism is impossible.”
“The victory of Trump in 2016, and the victory of Trump in 2024, and the continued victories of Trumpist-style candidates in Republican primaries shows that Republican voters like a populist-infused Republican party,” added Olsen, who has closely studied populism’s rise inside the GOP. “There is still a significant minority that would prefer an unpopulist-infused Republican. They are overrepresented in the D.C. elites.”
Rubio, 54, says he is firmly behind Vance for 2028. “If J.D. Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” the secretary told Vanity Fair in an interview last year. Rubio is no doubt interested in mounting another White House bid, an effort that might be less taxing the second time around because his four children are now grown. But so far, Rubio is focusing on his job—doing and saying little to cast doubt on the sincerity of his endorsement of the vice president.
Indeed, to avoid uncertainty about his intentions, the secretary appears to be deliberately steering clear of domestic travel, other than to Florida to visit family (including trips to Gainesville, to watch his son play football for the University of Florida). Compare that to Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state during the final three years of his first presidency. Pompeo traveled extensively inside the U.S. during his tenure, while also hosting private dinners with business, media, and political leaders aimed at raising his national profile.
Meanwhile, Vance, 41, is full steam ahead. The vice president has spent the last year as Republican National Committee finance chairman, entrenching him in the national party apparatus. Vance is supported on the outside by a coalition of wealthy GOP donors and party operatives, known as Rockbridge Network—formed specifically to strengthen his White House prospects. And he regularly gasses up Air Force Two for trips abroad and to key swing states to promote Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agendas, all the while burnishing his image as the 45th and 47th president’s heir apparent.
Add to that Vance’s incredible popularity among Republican primary voters, the likelihood of receiving Trump’s endorsement should he run—and, according to some Republican insiders, the unlikelihood of facing meaningful competition in the primary—and the nomination would seem his for the taking. Still, when asked about his 2028 plans and a theoretical rivalry with Rubio, the vice president downplays both. “Marco is my closest friend in the administration, I think he’s doing a great job for the American people,” he told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “That’s what we’re focused on.”
“I think it’s so interesting,” Vance added in that interview. “The media wants to create this conflict, where there just isn’t any conflict.”
But it’s not just the media. Gaming out whether Rubio 2028 comes to fruition, or whether the GOP is more likely than not to nominate a Vance-Rubio ticket, is something of an obsession among Republicans inside the Beltway.
Many traditional conservatives inside the party regularly confide to The Dispatch that they prefer Rubio. To be sure, the secretary embraced Trump-styled domestic populism following his failed 2016 presidential campaign. But he has retained his penchant for internationalist foreign policy that projects American power and is friendlier to alliances, which is comforting to GOP Reaganites—especially if the alternative is Vance. Plus, they’re convinced Rubio is more appealing than the vice president with general election voters.
As for Rubio, he once reflected on what it takes to be successful in presidential politics in an interview with this reporter, explaining, essentially, that it all comes down to timing. And that might shed some light on his thinking vis-à-vis Vance.
“I’m not a surfer but I equate it a little bit to surfing,” the secretary said following Trump’s first term, in an interview for In Trump’s Shadow; The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP about his political future. “You can have the best surfboard in the world; you could be the best surfer in the world. If there’s no waves, or if you don’t time the waves, you’re not going to surf. You don’t control that part of it.”