Early in his second term, President Donald Trump would reportedly play a game in which he'd talk about whether Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio should be his successor. At that time, the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 seemed like a prize very much worth having. With the 2026 midterm elections setting back Republicans so severely that that year's nominee now seems like a surefire loser, it appears that at least one of those prospective candidates, Rubio, is quietly stepping away from the political limelight.
"Several lawmakers said they’ve spoken to people close to Rubio who have suggested he isn’t interested in pursuing a 2028 bid, even after Tuesday’s results," reported Politico's Meredith Lee Hill and Mia McCarthy on Wednesday. "Rubio himself this week has stood by Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran and told reporters Monday he was 'just not going to talk about 2028 anymore.'"
The journalists added, "Rubio’s supporters say that he’s not as closely associated with the 2026 GOP wipeout as Vance, but he could face his own obstacles. Rubio, unlike Vance, has continued to show strong support for the war in Iran, a conflict he’s tied to as the country’s top diplomat. Some GOP lawmakers have also grown frustrated with the amount of information the Trump administration, including Rubio at times, has been willing to share about the ongoing conflict."
They continued, "Rubio also has his failed 2016 presidential run to contend with, including an infamous debate performance where he awkwardly repeated the same rehearsed line multiple times."
Politico is not the first outlet to report on the possibility that Rubio will distance himself from the Trump administration. Going one step further, Bloomberg reported shortly after the election results came in that the Secretary of State is thinking of resigning.
"Secretary of State Marco Rubio is weighing whether to leave the Trump administration, people familiar with the matter said, as he considers his next moves following Republicans’ midterm elections wipeout this week," Bloomberg's Alan Wickham posted on X at the time. "Rubio and his advisers are going over options for his future, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations. He hasn’t made a decision about whether to quit his posts as top US diplomat and national security adviser, and there is no timetable on a possible departure."
Speaking to AlterNet earlier in November, Beauregard Patterson — Election and Voting Rights Counsel at Democracy Defenders Fund — argued that Trump had planned on stealing the 2026 midterm elections but found the pro-Democratic vote and sprawling nature of the contest made it impossible for him to do so.
"One of the challenges here is that, in order to actually overturn this election, the Trump administration would have had to successfully overturn the results in several states simultaneously," Patterson explained to AlterNet. "And look at the past year and a half of litigation efforts to challenge election procedures and to federalize elections, particularly, if you’ll recall, the attempt to use USPS as a federal mechanism for whether ballots are rejected or accepted. Because of the failure of all those dozens of legal challenges and attempts at subversion by the Trump administration, they were left with few tools at this point to meaningfully try to take over and overturn the election results."
