Erika Kirk, now the leader of the Turning Point USA organization after her husband Charlie Kirk’s slaying in September, said the group will work to get Vice-President JD Vance elected president in 2028.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” Kirk said late Thursday at Turning Point USA’s annual youth conference in Phoenix, Ariz., with a reference to what will be the 48th U.S. presidency.
Vance was a frequent guest on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, and Kirk campaigned for Vance when he ran for U.S. Senate representing Ohio in 2022. After Kirk’s killing in September, Vance said the roots of their friendship dated back to 2017, as Vance made the rounds to promote his well-received memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
Since Kirk was shot to death on Sept. 10 at an event on a Utah university campus, Vance has hosted Kirk’s podcast and made a tour stop for Turning Point at the University of Mississippi.
“If it weren’t for Charlie Kirk, I would not be the vice-president of the United States,” Vance said at a memorial for Kirk on Sept. 15. In the same speech, Vance said “they tried to silence my friend,” though no credible evidence has emerged to this point that the 22-year-old suspect in Kirk’s shooting had any accomplices.
While Erika Kirk, 37, has hinted at a Vance endorsement in recent weeks, it is somewhat unusual given that the presidential election is nearly three years into the future.
Vance focused on midterms
Charlie Kirk, 31 when he died, gained attention as a high school student after contributing an article to the right-wing Breitbart News. Soon after, Republican-supporting businessmen including Foster Friess and Bill Montgomery, both since deceased, helped fund a youth-oriented organization led by Kirk.
Kirk subsequently spoke at the next three Republican national conventions, which all endorsed Trump for president. The alliance was financially beneficial for both Turning Point and the Kirks, The Associated Press reported in 2024.
Erika Kirk has vowed to continue the group’s mission after the death of her husband, father to their two children. She was unanimously elected as Turning Point’s next leader by the organization’s board.
In her speech Thursday, she said the group would also work to ensure “President [Donald] Trump has Congress for all four years,” a reference to next year’s midterms.
Trump, aware that the party of the president often suffers adverse results in the next midterm election, has pressured several Republican-led states to enact new maps for partisan advantage.
United States Vice-President JD Vance said MAGA influencer and Trump ally Charlie Kirk built a movement and ‘transformed the face of conservatism in our own time, and in doing so, he changed the course of American history.’
Vance, too, has said he is focused on next year’s midterms and will talk with Trump sometime after that date about the possibility of a 2028 presidential election campaign.
“I would say that I thought about what that moment might look like after the midterm elections, sure,” Vance told Sean Hannity of Fox News last month.
Republican vice-presidents have earned the nomination for president on several occasions in the past, but none since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Mike Pence ran a brief campaign for president that fizzled in the 2024 cycle, as he was considered persona non grata by many grassroots MAGA supporters for not believing he had the ability to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
Vance would offer a diverse background as a candidate — he’s a U.S. veteran, Yale Law School graduate and former venture capitalist — but his two-year Senate turn was unremarkable in terms of legislation. In his first year as vice-president, he has been well-travelled but seemingly has operated without specific policy portfolios, unlike recent VPs like Biden, Kamala Harris and Dick Cheney.
Trump teases 4th run, also talks up Vance, Rubio
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and has been the subject of 2028 media speculation. But in a two-part Vanity Fair digital article that has attracted attention for the frank and critical comments made by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Rubio reportedly indicated that Vance would be a factor in his own decision whether to run.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio is said to have told journalist Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair.
Trump, on Air Force one with Rubio standing nearby, deemed both men “great” candidates in late October.
“I’m not sure if anyone would run against those two,” Trump told reporters.
“I think if they ever formed a group, it would be unstoppable,” the president added, appearing to hypothesize about a presidential ticket combining the Trump administration officials.
The president made those comments even as he has sold “Trump 2028” merchandise and teased the possibility of another presidential run, at one point saying “he’d love to do it.” A raft of polls have indicated that Trump’s approval rating is at near historic lows, and he will be 82 at the end of his current term.
While Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in his fourth presidential term when he died in 1945, the 22nd Amendment enacted the following decade states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Steve Bannon — former 2016 Trump campaign manager and 2017 White House adviser for Trump — told the Economist in a recent interview that he doesn’t believe the amendment is ironclad.
“At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan,” Bannon said of the possibility of another Trump run.
‘I would stomp him’: Ocasio-Cortez
Theoretically, there would be nothing preventing a president being chosen as a vice-presidential candidate by a subsequent nominee and wielding influence. Trump dismissed that idea to a reporter in October as “too cute.”
“I think the people wouldn’t like that,” said Trump. “It’s too cute. It wouldn’t be right.”
Polling has already taken place regarding hypothetical matchups not including Trump, including by survey group Verasight. In a survey of over 1,500 Americans for The Argument magazine, Verasight put Democratic House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York the preferred choice in a matchup with Vance, by 2 percentage points.
“Listen, these polls, like three years out, you know, they are what they are,” Ocasio-Cortez told a reporter who asked about the poll.
“But let the record show, I would stomp him,” a laughing Ocasio-Cortez added.
Ocasio-Cortez, like Vance, has not formally announced any presidential campaign plans.
