LEFT: JD Vance (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) RIGHT: Marco Rubio (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
A shocking new poll from AtlasIntel suggests that there may be a new favorite to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2028.
According to the survey, which was conducted between May 4-7 and included a sample size of 2,069 American adults, a plurality (45.4%) of Republican respondents now identify Secretary of State Marco Rubio as their preferred choice to carry the GOP’s banner two years from now.
Vice President JD Vance, who has long held the pole position in the race, finished in second with 29.6%, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) at 11.2%.
After DeSantis, 10.3% of Republicans said their preference wasn’t included in the named choices. Vivek Ramaswamy, who is presently running to be the next governor of Ohio, finished in fourth place at 1.4%.
Among the general public, 51% said they have a negative, and 46% said they have a positive image of Rubio. Vance is further underwater, at 58% negative and just 37% positive.
The polling firm’s previous national poll, which was conducted last December, suggested Vance boasted a hefty advantage over Rubio, 46.7%-22.6%.
On Monday, President Donald Trump asked a crowd assembled at the White House, “Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?” before musing that it sounded “like a good ticket.”
“By the way, I do believe that’s a dream team. But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance!” continued a seemingly half-kidding Trump.
WATCH: Here’s the moment that President Trump took a poll of the crowd over who should be president in 2028.
Then he floated a potential Vance/ Rubio 2028 ticket calling it a “dream team.”
By the cheers in the crowd, President Trump seemed to say it would be Vance as President… https://t.co/SozDVtTLl9 pic.twitter.com/0MGYdJC9UB
— Kellie Meyer (@KellieMeyerNews) May 12, 2026
Longtime political commentator Mark Halperin recently suggested that Vance might not run in 2028, though he still identified him as the man most likely to succeed Trump as the GOP standard-bearer.
“I will say that in the next two years, as people in the party and the media are comparing Rubio and Vance side-by-side, I don’t think Vance can win’em, win the performance competition. I don’t think the-, I, don’t, and the likability. I may be wrong, but I just think Rubio has improved enough and the perceptions are such that Vance is going to have a hard time of people looking at him in a press conference, in an interview on the stump, whether he drops his nasty tweet persona or not, I think he’s going to have a hard time winning that,” observed Halperin, who continued:
Here’s the bottom line for me. These two guys are genuine friends, and even though people tell me I’m naive, you cannot beat an incumbent vice president running for president unless you rip their face off. That’s just the way our politics work. So I do not think they’ll run against each other. I also am not sure that one or both of them will run because they’re young dads — the Vances are about to have a baby, Rubio’s kids are still relatively young — and they both know what scrutiny is like, and they both know, they’re both smart enough to know, that if they run, the level of scrutiny they get will be unlike anything they’ve ever gotten before.
So if Vance chooses not to run, and I think that’s a possibility, probably because of his kids, I think Rubio will be in extremely strong position. I think he’ll have the support of the president, of Vance, his friend, and I think you’ll, he’ll be pretty close to a lock for the nomination. If Vance runs, I think they’ll run together. I think they’ll be a ticket, and they may even announce as a ticket from the beginning of the campaign, potentially, and raise $2 billion before the New Hampshire primary.
— —
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet “Newsletter of Newsletters”
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
