Speculation is rampant about who might succeed President Donald Trump as the 2028 GOP nominee and de facto leader of the MAGA movement, and according to one prominent Republican pollster, a "shock name" is gaining serious traction with voters across various focus groups.
Sarah Longwell is a noted anti-Trump conservative and publisher of The Bulwark. She also conducts extensive focus group tests with voters to get a better sense of where the Republican Party might be headed in the near future. While most pundits have been busy debating the potential of Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio to succeed their boss, Longwell's focus groups have shown increasing support for a shocking alternative: Candace Owens, the far-right media personality and conspiracy theorist, noted for her recent antipathy towards Trump.
As Longwell explained this week, few non-politicians have gotten the same traction from the voters she speaks with as Owens. She also shared some of the comments she has gotten about her from prospective GOP voters.
“I think Candace Owens is great. I would vote for her in a minute," Mycal, described as a Biden-to-Trump voter from North Carolina, said last year.
“People say she’s nutty, I don’t think she’s nutty," Rex, a California voter, said. "I think she’s very well-grounded."
I follow Candace Owens very closely. I have for years,” Melissa, a Pennsylvania voter who went for Trump in the last two elections, told Longwell in November. “She’s extremely articulate, and she also investigates things.”
“I’m sure I’ll catch a lot of flack for this one, but I am a Candace Owens fan," Kim, described as a Gen-Z Trump voter, said. "I think she’s a very smart lady.”
Owens has floated a presidential bid going back as far as 2021. More recently, in December of 2024, she asked followers on social media if she should run in 2028 or 2032, and floated Rep. Thomas Massie, who has since emerged as a staunch GOP enemy of Trump, as a running mate.
"Owens, 37, got her start as a Turning Point USA firebrand before reinventing herself as a freewheeling broadcaster," The Daily Beast wrote about Owens on Tuesday. "Her popularity surged after the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk, when she pushed a series of radical claims, including the theory that Israel was behind his killing. Those claims made her plenty of enemies, but they did little to dent her standing in the focus groups."
