Vance eyes 2028 reset, as Republicans mull pivot after US midterms drubbing

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkA framed photo of US President Donald Trump is seen before the start of a midterm election night watch party with Iowa Republicans at the Hilton Des Moines Downtown on November 3, 2026 in Des Moines, Iowa, the United States [Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/AFP]By Edna MohamedPublished On 5 Nov 20265 Nov 2026Hours after results confirmed that the Republican Party had lost control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the United States Congress in the midterm elections this week, senior Republicans were hand-wringing over what had gone so badly wrong and whether a major course correction would now be required.As once-Republican strongholds like Texas fell to the enemy, US Vice President JD Vance took to X to declare that the “real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone”.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Democrats won Congress. But can they deliver on their promises?list 2 of 3Election deniers lose races for governor in key US swing stateslist 3 of 3What’s delaying the US Senate election results in Mississippi and Alaska?end of list“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest,” Vance said.Former Trump voters had switched sides, he said, over the Iran war and the US ties to Israel.The elephant in the room was no more.“I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, ‘I told you so’: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview,” he wrote. A poisoned chaliceJust days after the US and Israel launched strikes across Iran on February 28, Tehran effectively closed the critical Strait of Hormuz, which once transited roughly 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade, triggering a massive spike in oil prices and a major global energy crisis. The price of Brent crude – the global benchmark – hit $120 in March and April and has hovered around $115 in recent weeks.On Thursday morning, oil prices dropped to $93.82 a barrel on expectations that Republican Party losses would reduce the likelihood of US President Donald Trump renewing strikes on Iran following weeks of speculation.But as consumers in the US struggle with sky-high petrol and diesel prices – not to mention the soaring cost of food, which has also been impacted by Trump’s trade tariffs – the midterms have forced a leadership rethink as the Trump brand appears increasingly toxic.While no Republicans have declared their intention to run for the 2028 presidential election, some in the party are believed to be eyeing it now.Andrew Payne, from the Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera that any Republican wanting to take on the 2028 election will now need to “distance themselves from the more unpopular aspects of Trump’s record”. That means the Iran war, the greatest poisoned chalice of them all.“That, I think, is why Vance came out so clearly in blaming the war. It is evident to those who have been watching closely that he has always been the voice of scepticism behind the scenes, and he now needs to make that difference of opinion clear to the average voter. But doing so will be really hard while Trump is still in office and, presumably, wants to play an active role as kingmaker,” Payne said.Unpopular, but not as unpopular as TrumpThe most obvious pick and frontrunner for the Republican 2028 nomination is currently Vance, who is known to have ambitions to take over from Trump.Regarded as an anti-US interventionist, Vance, while publicly supporting Trump’s Iran war, has also been privately urging him and others to end the conflict, according to the US news outlet Axios.Last week, Vance sent a letter to the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, proposing a meeting between US and Iranian officials soon in a bid to prevent further escalation. By contrast, this week Trump said the war would only come to an end “when I want it to”.This move, coupled with his post on X on Wednesday night, is increasingly being seen as Vance putting as much distance as he can between himself and the war.Throwing off the Trump touch may be trickier than he thinks, however, according to one Vance ally close to the White House who spoke to Politico on Wednesday. While it is “possible for him [Vance] to modestly differentiate himself” from Trump, the source said, there is no way to completely delink himself.“He’s still Trump’s vice president. This is still a Trump administration war. They’re still both unpopular. He’s not as unpopular as Trump but he’s unpopular,” the anonymous source said.According to Tuesday polling from The New York Times on who is ahead in a theoretical Republican presidential primary, Vance is at 40 percent. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio follows at 21 percent, alongside Donald Trump Jr, also at 21 percent.Rubio has yet to comment on the Republican wipeout. Still, like Vance, he is allied with Trump’s administration, which may make a presidential bid challenging.Any potential candidate now faces a choice between two routes, Payne said. One is to “re-energise the [Make America Great Again or MAGA] movement, which I expect will be difficult, because Trump did it through sheer force of personality that is hard to replicate”.“The second route is to keep as much of the base on board as possible while appealing to the traditional conservative groups who have drifted from the party over the past decade, thereby expanding the coalition. If he runs, I would think Marco Rubio has a better shot at doing that,” Payne said.‘Blue tsunami’There are other potential candidates to consider.A former frontrunner for the 2016 presidential election, which saw Trump secure his first administration, Ted Cruz is now Texas’s only statewide Republican lawmaker.In a post on X after the results, Cruz wrote: “2026 was not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was an a** kicking”.“Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high. Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over,” Cruz wrote.“Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain. So, what do we do now? We need to listen and respond. We need to champion economic policies that make a real difference in working people’s lives, and we need to deal with the consequences.”In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cruz was testing the waters for the 2028 nomination. But as one of the early cheerleaders for the Iran war, Cruz will struggle to disassociate himself from it, other than to criticise the manner of its execution.As the blame game continues, the Republican Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, described the results of the midterms as “close to an extinction-level event” for the party.“If the Republican Party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward,” he said.“We’re in a very volatile political era, things shift quickly, and the leaders just got to recognise that.”DeSantis’s time as governor ends in January after two terms, but speculation has grown about whether he also wants to throw his hat into the ring for the US presidential nomination as the playing field remains wide open.