Even as President Donald Trump’s overall approval faces challenges from independents, Democrats, and young voters, his support remains strong with his base, and his top lieutenant remains popular with conservatives. Or, should we say, his top two lieutenants.
On Saturday, according to The New York Times, Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) organizers announced the results of a straw poll showing Vice President J.D. Vance as conference attendees’ overwhelming choice for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
In fact, no candidate since Trump himself has dominated the CPAC poll the way Vance has.
At this year’s conference, the vice president received 53 percent of the vote. That number represented a modest drop off from 2025, when Vance registered 61 percent support.
Meanwhile, as Vance’s prospective candidacy remains strong, another top Trump administration official has surged.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio earned 35 percent support at this year’s conference. While still trailing Vance by a substantial amount, Rubio nonetheless has quickly established himself as a clear contender. After all, at the 2025 CPAC conference the secretary of state earned only three percent support.
As for the rest of the prospective GOP field, well, let’s just say that 2028 looks like a two-man race.
Donald Trump Jr. and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida each earned a mere two percent of the vote. Rounding out the field, five others barely registered at one percent each. They were: Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
For comparison’s sake, Sunday on the social media platform X, Jack Posobiec of Human Events shared a chart showing CPAC straw poll winners and second-place finishers dating back to 2005.
As a sitting president in 2019, Trump won 82 percent of the vote. Then, in 2021, in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion, the then-former president still prevailed as the first choice of 55 percent of CPAC attendees.
Otherwise, no prospective GOP candidate has come close to Vance’s 53 percent support. (Note: Posobiec’s chart did not include 2025 results, when Vance earned 61 percent of the vote.)
At 53%, JD Vance won the highest CPAC straw poll result in history with the exception of Trump himself pic.twitter.com/ulnqBAmuQx
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) March 30, 2026
Of course, as the Times noted, the CPAC poll “has not historically been a strong predictor of whom Republican voters will ultimately back in a contested primary.”
That lesson bears noting alongside Trump’s overall approval numbers.
According to the latest RealClearPolling aggregate of polls, Trump’s approval rating sits at 41 percent overall. Nearly all recent polls show the president underwater by double digits, as his overall disapproval rating has reached 56.8 percent.
The young people — especially young men — who helped get Trump elected in 2024 have largely abandoned him, even as older supporters and his core base are sticking strongly by him. The latest evidence for this trend appeared in a Quantus Insights survey last week, which showed the president’s overall disapproval rating with the 18-29 age group at a gargantuan 76 percent.
Conservatives might as well face such facts if we want Vance or Rubio’s current popularity to mean anything in 2028.
While the Iran war is undeniably still favorable among much of the core MAGA base, it’s clear that independents, and other parts of the Trump coalition are far from supportive of the ongoing conflict.
Conservatives had best stop congratulating themselves on internal polling and start paying attention to the mood of the broader electorate if we hope to avoid bloodbaths in both 2026 and 2028.
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