PHOENIX — Vice President JD Vance hasn't formally announced that he will seek to succeed President Donald Trump, but a key piece of the grassroots wing of the MAGA coalition is beginning to line up behind him nearly three years ahead of the 2028 election.
Not only did Vance win an endorsement from Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA and widow of the organization's slain co-founder, Charlie Kirk, on Thursday night, but a straw poll of attendees at its AmericaFest conference showed Vance taking 84%, followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 5% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 3%.
Those results broadly reflect the sentiments AmericaFest attendees expressed in more than a dozen interviews last week at the four-day conference in Arizona, and they suggest Vance, who is also a favorite of some of the political right's wealthiest tech-sector barons, is finding early success in holding together disparate segments of Trump's base at a fractious moment for other conservative luminaries.
Renee Harrison, a first-time AmericaFest participant who retired from a career arranging financing for longtime corporate customers at Microsoft, said her pick in the 2028 Republican primaries is "definitely JD."
"Because he has the balls and he comes from a real background," Harrison, 64, of Star, Idaho, said of Vance, a former senator from Ohio and author of a bestselling memoir about growing up in hardscrabble Appalachia. "He says it how it is."
Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, founded in 2012 to engage young activists, provided crucial support for Trump's 2024 campaign, and the organization's ranks are growing, according to Erika Kirk.
It now claims more than 1 million members and more than 1,400 college campus chapters, she said in opening remarks at the conference Thursday night. But it is also attracting older voters from Trump's coalition, particularly in the wake of Charlie Kirk's Sept. 10 assassination.
Wendy Leighton-Floyd, 56, said she is "probably leaning in Vance's direction" as she walked around AmericaFest with her 22-year-old daughter, Liberty Granger.
"Honestly, I wish Trump could just be king forever and pass it down to the next one and then eventually Barron [Trump]. I don’t believe in having kings, but if we could, I think he’s done a lot, and I think he speaks out," said Leighton-Floyd, of Kansas City, Missouri. "I think he’s probably priming JD Vance, because I’ve noticed that he’s getting more outward-spoken about things and not holding it in."
Granger, like many of the younger voters at the conference, was less sure about her candidate than the quality she seeks in a Republican nominee.
"Whoever’s for America — if they’re for America, if they are for the people and for our rights and keeping our rights established and not taking anything from us," she said of the kind of candidate she wants, adding that Vance falls into that category.
Sophia Caniglia, a student at Abilene Christian University in Texas, said she and her family decided to forgo Christmas presents this year to attend AmericaFest together on VIP tickets. She hasn't locked down a favorite for 2028, the first year she will be eligible to cast a presidential vote, but she said she is likely to be with Vance — if that's what her parents want.
"I’ll probably be voting for JD Vance," said Caniglia, who wore a ball cap with a gigantic "47" logo on it — representing the number of Trump's current presidency. "I think the country’s going in the right direction. Whatever candidate my family thinks would help the country move forward."
None of the conference attendees who spoke to NBC News said they were opposed to Vance, who is widely expected to run as the young No. 2 to a term-limited president. The last sitting vice president to run for president, Democrat Kamala Harris, lost to Trump last year after she took the reins of the Democratic campaign from President Joe Biden, who dropped out midway through the race under heavy pressure from his party.
The last Republican vice president to run for president at the tail end of his term, George H.W. Bush, won a contested 1988 primary campaign and the presidency, and many Republicans foresee Vance trying to follow the same path.
"It seems pretty evident that Vance more than likely will throw his hat in the ring," said Philip Ormand, 31, a software engineer from Tucson, Arizona. "If JD Vance were to run, he’s certainly someone I’d be willing to support."
Despite the general warmth for Vance, some attendees weren't yet ready to lock down their votes so early in the process, and others named candidates they might prefer.
Vance would be a "great option" but might already be "too divisive" to bring the country together, said Taylor Winston, 37, an entrepreneur from Nashville, Tennessee. He hopes Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky, will be the GOP's pick.
Massie, who has butted heads with Trump over a series of issues, including Massie's push to force the Justice Department to release its files on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is seeking re-election to his House seat in 2026. Trump allies are trying to unseat him in next year's primary.
"Everything he votes on has truly been 'America First,'" Winston said of Massie. "I don’t know if he will run, but someone like that who has a track record of putting America first and going potentially against the grain is someone I think we need to refresh everything — because this country is so divided."
