A new University of New Hampshire poll shows Vice President JD Vance's once-commanding lead over Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a hypothetical 2028 GOP primary has been cut nearly in half, raising fresh questions about the heir-apparent narrative.
Vance still leads the field among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, pulling 36 percent in the latest Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. But that number represents a 17-point drop from the 53 percent he held in the same survey conducted in February. Rubio, meanwhile, nearly quadrupled his support, jumping from 7 percent to 26 percent over the same period, Fox News Digital reported.
No other candidate came close. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley each grabbed 8 percent. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who ran for the nomination in 2024, sat at 6 percent. Every other name tested landed at 4 percent or below.
David Carney, a New Hampshire-based Republican consultant and veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, told Fox News Digital the top-two dynamic tracks with what he sees on the ground:
"There's nobody else in the conversation besides those two, so this poll makes sense."
New Hampshire has hosted the first Republican presidential primary for a century. A shift this large in the state's most-watched survey does not settle the 2028 race, but it does confirm that the early contest is no longer a one-man show.
The secretary of state's rise in the poll did not come from nowhere. Rubio has spent months crisscrossing the globe, carrying out the kind of high-profile foreign-policy work that keeps a cabinet official in the headlines. Fox News Digital pointed to his role in the U.S. operation in Venezuela and the ongoing conflict with Iran as factors that elevated his public standing.
President Trump has added fuel. Earlier this year, Trump declared Rubio would go down as "the greatest secretary of state in history" and floated a Vance-Rubio ticket he called "unstoppable." That kind of praise from a term-limited president whose endorsement still carries enormous weight inside the GOP does more than flatter, it plants a name in voters' minds as presidential timber.
Rubio also came in a close second to Vance at this year's CPAC straw poll, a result that signaled activist-class interest well before the New Hampshire numbers moved. The Washington Examiner noted that Rubio performs stronger among moderate and libertarian-leaning primary voters, while Vance's support is concentrated among self-identified conservatives, a split that suggests Rubio is assembling a broader coalition.
Republican sources confirmed to Fox News earlier this year that a group of GOP donors has been quietly exploring ways to boost Rubio's political profile. Rubio himself has publicly said he will back Vance if Vance launches a 2028 campaign, a statement that stops short of a formal declaration that he will not run and leaves the door cracked open.
Vance has repeatedly waved off talk of a rift. In an interview with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on "The Story," the vice president framed the speculation as a media creation:
"I think it's so interesting the media wants to create this conflict where there just isn't any conflict."
He told MacCallum that Rubio is his "closest friend in the administration." An operative inside Trump's political orbit, speaking anonymously to Fox News Digital, echoed that line, calling Vance "the future of the Republican Party" and describing Rubio as "one of his closest friends in the administration." The same operative dismissed donor maneuvering:
"The divisive stories from some donors trying to cause chaos are not helpful."
That messaging is disciplined. But discipline does not erase a 17-point polling slide. Vance has built a political team of advisors and has Trump's private signal as his preferred 2028 successor, yet the infrastructure has not prevented the erosion in New Hampshire.
Last year, Trump himself said Vance is "most likely" his heir apparent, adding, "In all fairness, he's the vice president." That framing gave Vance the clearest lane any non-incumbent has had in a generation. The question now is whether the lane is narrowing because of something Vance did, or something Rubio earned.
Not everyone in Republican circles buys the "no conflict" message. An unnamed longtime Republican strategist, granted anonymity by Fox News to speak more freely, offered a blunter assessment of the vice president's position:
"Vance is in the catbird seat until something really goes bad, and Trump is going to blame him.... I can't imagine Vance walking this tightrope for two more years without p***ing off Trump."
That warning captures the structural risk Vance faces. A vice president who owes his position to the president's favor can lose that favor in a single news cycle. Rubio, operating from Foggy Bottom rather than the West Wing, carries less political exposure and gets credit for wins abroad without absorbing blame for domestic setbacks. The asymmetry is baked into their job descriptions.
Vance has also faced external political pressure. Democrats have targeted him with escalating rhetoric, and at least one former Trump aide has publicly argued that Vance was positioned to absorb blame for policy setbacks rather than share credit for successes.
Meanwhile, the vice president's own staff has seen turnover. His chief of staff since day one is set to step down at summer's end, a departure that adds an organizational question mark at a moment when the political ground is already shifting.
Rubio, by contrast, does not have a comparable political aide group, a fact that could cut both ways. He lacks the campaign-in-waiting infrastructure Vance is assembling, but he also lacks the overhead and the leaks that come with it. His profile is rising on the strength of his day job, not a parallel political operation.
Polls taken more than two years before a primary are snapshots, not predictions. Vance remains the frontrunner. He holds the institutional advantage of the vice presidency, the stated backing of the sitting president, and a lead in New Hampshire that any other candidate in the field would gladly trade for.
But the trajectory matters. Going from 53 to 36 in the same survey while your closest competitor goes from 7 to 26 is not a rounding error. It is a trend, and in a state that has hosted the first GOP primary for a century, trends get noticed early. Rubio's steady rise in early-state polling now has enough data points behind it that dismissing it as noise requires ignoring the numbers.
Haley, Paul, and DeSantis remain in single digits. Unless one of them finds a breakout moment, the 2028 Republican primary is shaping up as a Vance-Rubio contest, two men who serve in the same administration, call each other friends, and are watching the same polling data the rest of the party is watching.
Vance can still win the nomination going away. But "heir apparent" is a title you hold until someone takes it from you, and Rubio is no longer standing politely in the back of the room.
