Pollster reveals the one Trump official who is 'really, really, really popular'

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

With President Donald Trump serving out his lame duck term, there has been much discussion about who will be heir to the Republican throne. While no clear leader has emerged, according to CNN’s Harry Enten, one White House official is gaining steam.

“Marco Rubio is really, really, really popular with Republicans,” Enten revealed on Wednesday. “His chances to be the Republican nominee in 2028 are up like a rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral.”

According to Enten — who is CNN’s chief data analyst — evidence of Rubio’s snowballing popularity comes from the prediction market Kalshi, on which odds that the Secretary of State will be the GOP nominee jumped from 11 percent in January to 30 percent by the end of May.

“All of a sudden, the people putting their money where their mouths are are really liking Rubio’s chances,” said Enten.

While it was once widely assumed that Vice President JD Vance would lead the Republican ticket in 2028, his political cache has diminished due to a number of recent setbacks and humiliations tied to the undesirable tasks he was handed, like stumping for the failed reelection of former Hungarian strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and overseeing early peace negotiations with Iran that fizzled embarrassingly. Meanwhile, Rubio has tended to enjoy less precarious tasks like visiting the Vatican to ease tensions with the Pope or accompanying Trump to UFC fights, which have garnered him generally positive or at least neutral media coverage.

Consequently, Rubio’s popularity has grown precipitously. As Forbes reports, among Republicans, his “net approval rating is the highest of any member of Trump’s administration at +77 points, according to Quinnipiac. JD Vance sits at +69, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at +63, and FBI Director Kash Patel at +49.”

Or as Enten explains, “Marco Rubio is, simply put, the most popular Republican in the Trump administration besides the president himself, and also, if you zone in a little bit more, of the Cabinet itself.”

That being said, Enten notes that Rubio still faces a -6 net approval rating among all voters, but while that means there is still ground for him to make up, he remains firmly ahead of other Trump officials like Vance (-15), Hegseth (-21), and Patel (-26).

“[Rubio] is underwater,” said Enten, “but not by that much…and he’s nearly 10 points more popular than JD Vance.”

That being said, some experts have noted that Rubio faces a number of difficult “roadblocks” in his path toward the Oval Office. To win, he has to thread the needle between garnering MAGA support and addressing the “major departure” from Trump polls suggest is desired by most voters. He also may yet get ensnared in some of the administration’s key policy disasters, like the war with Iran.

And while Rubio may be popular with many Republicans, there is no shortage of those who remain unconvinced. According to the influential conservative Ann Coulter, he is unlikely to appeal to the “America First” ethos expected by many Republicans.

“The half-wits like Rubio and his donors feel like big intellectual global strategists, striding the globe, rearranging things,” said Coulter recently. “But every time they rearrange things, it’s an unmitigated disaster.”

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