Chances are good that the Republican nominee for president in 2028 will be named either J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio (as I write, the prediction markets put the odds at around 70 percent).
Yet we are still a long way from the first primary, and much could change. Republicans might get clobbered worse than expected in the midterms. Perhaps the AI bubble will burst and crash the economy—or maybe it won’t, and the robots will take our jobs ahead of schedule.
But whatever the situation, neither the vice president nor the secretary of state will cruise to victory completely unopposed. Other Republicans are sure to throw their hats in the ring, even if the prospect of victory is slim; some will run without expecting anything more than a boost to their profiles or a cabinet nod down the road.
Whence might such challengers come? Governorships are a good guess; it is a natural jump from running a state—particularly an important state (say, Florida)—to running the country. We could also see some candidates from less conventional backgrounds (broadcast journalism, anyone?).
One place, however, is almost guaranteed to supply a few contenders: the United States Senate. Our august upper chamber has served as the nursery of 17 presidents so far, and there is no reason to believe this role—which, given the body’s apparently incurable legislative sclerosis, may well be its most important modern function—has ended.
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