Project 2028: A parade of Republican officials jockeys during the RNC for future White House runs

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Candidates, start your engines. With plausible deniability, of course.

The 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is officially a gathering to propel Donald Trump into a third consecutive nomination. A parade of loyal lieutenants, including many former Trump primary rivals, have taken the stage to pay homage to the former and potentially future president, making clear just how deep the Trump brand is embossed on the collective Republican soul.

But beyond the primetime pep rallies in front of thousands of delegates – and Trump – the same cadre that make up the GOP’s next tier of power and prestige is jockeying for what seems unthinkable: A post-Trump Republican Party.

Welcome to the 2028 presidential primary pregame.

“As soon as Trump became the nominee, we might even say as soon as Trump won the Iowa caucuses so overwhelmingly in January, it began,” said Iowa Republican Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, whose state will host the GOP’s traditional first-in-the-nation caucuses about 42 months from now.

Vice presidential nominee JD Vance got the most obvious jump Wednesday night in an acceptance speech that mixed praise for Trump with his own national introduction as an ideal successor for Trumpian populism.

Being Trump’s running mate isn’t a guarantee for future political success. Former Vice President Mike Pence’s years of loyalty to Trump were erased in the eyes of many Republican voters when he refused to accede to Trump’s demands that he try to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. When Pence ran for the 2024 nomination, he often drew anemic crowds and boos from Trump supporters who labeled him a traitor. He dropped out months before the Iowa caucuses.

For now, the 39-year-old Vance starts as a potentially seamless understudy. But he has plenty of company among Republicans who assume a wide-open 2028 primary, because Trump will either be a term-limited president or an 82-year-old who would not run again.

Some of the maneuvers this week have been subtle: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has not yet run for president, stopped by the Iowa delegation’s convention floor seats to make the rounds. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran in 2016 and was a finalist for the 2024 ticket before Trump opted for Vance, texted Kaufmann and asked he share “greetings” with Iowa delegates.

There’s also the obvious: Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and 2024 candidate, making himself ubiquitous across television networks, impromptu press gaggles and state delegation meetings this week.

And there’s Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who finished a disappointing second to Trump in the 2024 caucuses and dropped out afterward. At an Iowa delegation lunch, he sounded like the same politician who spent a year courting the state’s conservative caucusgoers, bragging on his policy record and Florida’s notable shift to the right. As he had the night before at the convention podium, DeSantis credited “good leadership.” Translation: His leadership.

There was no mention of another White House chase, but there didn’t have to be.

Then there are the in-betweens, figures who are raising or maintaining their profiles to preserve future options.

Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia are Republicans who have raised their profiles in two-party battleground states without clinging seamlessly to Trump.

Youngkin, who spoke in primetime on opening night, hosted one the week’s larger late-night after-parties, with invitations issued well beyond the Virginia delegation. Youngkin, a wealthy venture capitalist before he ran for governor in a Democratic-leaning state, is popular among the GOP old guard, the Chamber of Commerce cohort uneasy with Trump’s and now Vance’s populist brand. But Youngkin has studiously avoided criticizing Trump, and he joined the former president in his box Wednesday evening on the floor.

Kemp, who drew Trump’s ire in 2020 by refusing to help overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia based on false theories of voter fraud, did not receive an invitation to speak. He did not necessarily want one, having endured Trump’s criticisms – and a Trump-endorsed primary rival – on his way to an impressive reelection victory in 2022.

Still, Kemp, who will chair the Republican Governors Association for the 2026 election cycle, did rounds of interviews along media row, hobnobbing at length with narrative-setters from traditional media outlets that many conservatives openly chastise and avoid.

As most would-be national candidates do, Kemp sidestepped questions about his possible future, whether a Senate race in 2026 or the presidential contest two years later. “I’m always keeping all doors open,” he said at a roundtable with two dozen national reporters and editors.

He did, however, endorse a certain kind of elected official as well-suited to national leadership.

“I’m a big fan of Republicans governors running for the White House,” he said, arguing that “they know how to govern.”

Trump’s last-standing 2024 rival, Nikki Haley, endured the most public high-wire act of the week. The former South Carolina governor and Trump’s U.N. ambassador drew audible boos when she took the stage to offer Trump her “strong endorsement” and thank him for a gracious invitation. But she made her best attempt to thread the needle for the sake of party unity and, perhaps, self-preservation: “I haven’t always agreed with Trump but we agree more often than we disagree. … You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him.”

Another governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, had no such needle to thread. Sanders was Trump’s most enduring of several White House press secretaries, and in the process became an endearing figure for core Trump voters.

At a Politico roundtable, she offered the safe answer that she was focused only on Trump’s election and then her own reelection in 2026. On the convention stage, though, Sanders stood resplendent as a quiet hall hung on every word of her speech, laughed at her anecdotes and roared at her praise of her old boss – displaying a connection with the party’s base and standard-bearer that few others can match.

Cole Trower, a Virginia delegate who helped organize community events for Youngkin’s 2021 campaign, said it is a natural part of a convention to take stock of the Republican bench, even when the party is so thoroughly dominated by a figure like Trump.

“Four years, eight years, it’s a long time, and there’s a lot of good people out there,” he said, comparing the process to sustaining a successful sports franchise. “You always have to have new recruits. They come in, go through training camp, get tackled or injured and say, man, this is tough. Politics is tough. But then they go in that weight room, and they come out as an all-star.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a former presidential candidate turned conservative elder, countered with a word of caution to the future contenders.

“JD is the front-runner,” said Gingrich, a Trump ally who talks periodically with the former president.

Trump, Gingrich said, did not select Vance to mollify some stray faction of the party – because he did not have to. If Trump wins in November, he said, Vance becomes the heir apparent.

“The guy who stands next to the president for eight years, or in this case four years, just has a huge psychological advantage,” Gingrich said, especially when he offers what the party’s base already embraces. “Now, they have a simple challenge: to deliver.”

Simple. But not easy.

Just ask Pence.

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Associated Press reporter Adriana Gomez Licon in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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