The GOP: Rise of the ‘Never Vancers’

JD Vance standing in front of an American flag — More and more people are coming out as “Never Vance” Republicans

(Image credit: Drew Hallowell / Getty Images)

The “knives are out” for JD Vance, said Natalie Allison in The Washington Post. As he prepares for a likely White House run in 2028, the vice president is facing a growing barrage of attacks from self-declared “Never Vance” Republicans, both online and in the opinion pages. Pro-Israel conservatives, including prominent commentators like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, have claimed that the populist Vance is “unfit” for the top job because of his reported opposition to the Iran war and for “looking weak” during peace negotiations with Tehran. And columnists in the Rupert Murdoch–owned Wall Street Journal—the voice of traditional conservatism—have slammed Vance for his skepticism of free-market capitalism and for echoing “the anti-Israel left.” Vance’s allies claim the veep is delighted to have earned the enmity of “the pre-Trump GOP establishment,” said Mike Zapler in Axios. But the scale of the hostility shows his coronation as Trump’s successor is no sure thing, and that many in the GOP would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the nominee in 2028.

The anti-Vance campaign is understandable, said Bret Stephens in The New York Times, because he “is by far the worst person ever” to serve as vice president. Consider his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast: He talked conspiratorially about aliens and claimed without evidence that Jeffrey Epstein may have been a Mossad agent and that Israel is trying to “manipulate” U.S. public opinion to keep the Iran war going. A “callow and sinister opportunist,” Vance likely doesn’t believe this bunk, but he knows the MAGA base will still lap it up. If it’s a choice between Vance and Rubio in ’28, I’ll take Vance, said Ross Douthat, also in the Times. The vice president has at least tried to get the U.S. out of the Iran quagmire, while Rubio has been “a profile in evasion, letting other officials take risks to either own the war or seek a peace while he keeps his options open.”

This fight is not just about Vance, said Kathy Gilsinan in Politico. The more traditional wing of the GOP is increasingly worried about “the rising generation of young staffers in their party,” many of whom seem happy to spout antisemitic and racist rhetoric and have no loyalty to the historical GOP platform. If Vance—who last year dismissed a racist Young Republicans group chat as “edgy jokes”—becomes the GOP’s torchbearer in 2028, it raises the question of whom exactly he’ll welcome into the fold, “and what exactly they’ll do with power once they get it.”