Some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors are already turning away from Vice President JD Vance after Tuesday’s midterm massacre, according to a new report from a known conservative outlet.
Within 24 hours of the election, a veteran New York fundraiser began fielding calls from deep-pocketed donors who all had the same complaint: “we can’t back Vance in 2028,” The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Instead, those donors floated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others as alternatives. They worried that a candidate from inside the administration “might be too tied to Trump and too battered by the midterms,” according to the fundraiser. The fundraiser was also frustrated that Vance couldn’t help the GOP keep his home state of Ohio, where Democrats flipped his old Senate seat. Other donors privately expressed similar concerns, the Journal reported.
The donor revolt is one of several signs that the GOP’s “most far-reaching Republican wipeout since Watergate” has scrambled Vance’s plans, according to the outlet. Some political allies have told the vice president they no longer believe any Republican can win the White House in 2028. On Election Day, as results rolled in, a longtime confidant texted Vance suggesting he consider sitting out the race.
Two people close to Vance even asked him in recent weeks whether he’d consider returning to Ohio to win back his old Senate seat, and one floated a run for governor. Vance rejected both ideas, the Journal reported.
Vance has told associates before and after the election that he hasn’t made up his mind, according to six people close to him. He has also watched clips of DeSantis’ recent interviews and “contemplated the possibility” of the Florida governor challenging him in a primary. DeSantis told SiriusXM’s Stephen A. Smith that gas prices are “higher because of this conflict” in Iran, and told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham the midterms were “a rebuke of the president and the Congress.”
Vance’s allies dismissed the donor grumbling. They told the Journal that donors were always going to complain because they prefer “more traditional, old-guard Republicans.”
The report also revealed that Vance tried to head off the Iran war that many Republicans now blame for their losses. In January, he privately urged Trump not to give up on diplomacy. He also personally asked pollster Mark Mitchell, then head of polling at Rasmussen Reports, to add questions about a potential Iran war to a survey. The results showed 62% of respondents said an acceptable level of U.S. combat deaths would be under 100, and 65% said Trump should seek congressional approval first.
Trump launched the war anyway. “I don’t think about it. I did the right thing,” he told the Journal on election night. “I would have done it again.”
Trump has repeatedly declined to endorse a successor.
“Maybe he won’t run,” the president said of Vance on Wednesday. “I don’t know who’s going to run.”