Secretary of State Marco Rubio runs stronger than Vice President JD Vance against four of five Democratic contenders in hypothetical 2028 presidential match-ups, a gap that could shape the first open Republican primary in over a decade.
An Emerson College/Hill poll of 1,000 respondents, published Wednesday, tested both Republicans against five Democrats: former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Rubio outperformed Vance in every pairing except one, Buttigieg, who held a five-point lead over both men.
The numbers carry a three-point margin of error, and at least six percent of respondents remained undecided in every match-up. But the pattern is consistent enough to matter: Vance trails three of the five Democrats by five points each, while Rubio cuts those deficits to two or three, or flips them entirely.
The starkest split between the two Republicans showed up in the Harris match-up. The former vice president led Vance 49 percent to 45 percent. Against Rubio, she trailed by five points.
That is a nine-point swing depending on which Republican carries the banner, in a race where both men serve in the same administration.
Ossoff, who has drawn early 2028 speculation, led Vance by five points but led Rubio by only three. Newsom followed the same pattern: five over Vance, two over Rubio. Ocasio-Cortez was the only Democrat to lose to both Republicans, trailing Vance by two and Rubio by five. Eleven percent of respondents were undecided in the Vance-Ocasio-Cortez pairing alone, the highest undecided share in any match-up tested.
Vance has not committed to a 2028 run. In June he said he would discuss a presidential bid with his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, after the November midterms. She gave birth to the couple's fourth child in July.
On CBS's "Sunday Morning," Vance offered a careful non-answer when pressed on the question:
"The way I make decisions is, I try not to make them until I absolutely must."
Rubio has been even more deferential. He told Vanity Fair last year that he would step aside if Vance sought the GOP nomination. That deference may be strategic, or it may be sincere. Either way, the poll numbers suggest Rubio would enter a primary from a stronger general-election position than the vice president.
The 2028 Republican primary will be the party's first without President Trump on the ballot since 2012. Rubio ran in 2016 and finished third, behind Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
President Trump has not publicly picked a favorite. But he has edged closer to Vance than to Rubio in his public remarks, and then pulled back.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump told donors in the Oval Office, "At the end of the day, we need to elect JD." When asked about the report, Trump called Vance "great" but added that it is "way too early to even be thinking about that."
In June, Trump floated a different idea on the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast. He called Vance "populist" and Rubio "traditionally conservative," described them as "a great team," and said:
"I don't know how you beat them if they're together."
A joint Vance-Rubio ticket would sidestep the primary question altogether. Whether either man, or the party's donor class, would accept the arrangement is another matter.
Early polls two years before a presidential election are notoriously unreliable as predictive tools. Name recognition, news cycles, and campaign infrastructure all shift the landscape. A three-point margin of error means several of these match-ups are effectively tied.
Still, the consistent direction of the gap between Rubio and Vance is worth noting. Rubio does not just edge Vance in one or two pairings. He runs ahead in four of five. Against the weakest Democratic candidate tested, Ocasio-Cortez, he wins by a wider margin. Against the strongest, Buttigieg, he ties Vance's deficit exactly.
For a party that watched its 2024 margins tighten in suburbs and with college-educated voters, the question is whether Rubio's "traditionally conservative" profile, Trump's own label, translates into a broader coalition than Vance's populist brand. The poll does not answer that question definitively. But it poses it clearly.
Republicans have time. They also have a choice, and the early numbers suggest the safe assumption that the vice president is the automatic front-runner deserves a second look.
