Texas Showdown
The Republican National Committee hosted the first-ever midterm convention in Dallas last week, Wednesday and Thursday. As noted before, the point of the event was to fire up the Trump base to show up in November the same way they showed up for the president when he ran and won in 2024.
Much attention was paid to 2028, however, and the question of who will succeed Trump as leader of the party. Or perhaps more accurately, who will succeed Trump as leader of the MAGA movement, and who will rise up to be the leader of the pre-Trump GOP.
One person conspicuous by his absence was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Part of that was because, like with the State of the Union address, you can’t have the whole cabinet in one place at one time in case of disaster…and it seemed like everyone else was in Dallas. A somewhat-convenient trip to South America was planned for Secretary Rubio.
But it also meant virtually all of the 2028 attention was focused on Vice President J.D. Vance, who gave a stemwinder of a speech at the event. And that was clearly on purpose—not to necessarily prop up Vance at Rubio’s expense, but to take away a possible distraction. If both had appeared and given remarks, folks would inevitably have tried to compare the two and talk about 2028—when the party’s focus had better be solely on 2026. So Vance got the spotlight, deflected chants from folks in the crowd about 2028 by saying the focus was on today and now with plenty of time for 2028 later, and carried out his assigned task.
Obviously others with 2028 on their minds, like Sen. Ted Cruz, kept up a high profile in his home state. But that’s not the same as divisive chatter about Vance and Rubio—who for his part, has consistently said he won’t even consider 2028 if Vance runs.
For all the planning that the Dallas event required, making sure any 2028 talk was eliminated may have been the smartest plan…given the stakes tied to 2026.
