We’re back to our regular schedule for Still Counting after taping bonus episodes last week and this weekend.1
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We → ’re → episodes
After considering how the extraordinary midterm landslide might affect Democrats’ 2028 plans, we turned to Republicans this time.
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we → consider → Republicans
Your reviews, comments, likes and subscribes are always appreciated.
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reviews → appreciate → ?
I won’t speak for Galen and Clare, but I found drafting the Republicans less fun than the Democrats.
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drafting → speak → Democrats
That’s partly because the field is top-heavy.
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field → ’ → ?
The top three Republican contenders, deemed by prediction markets to be JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis, together have about a two-thirds chance of being the nominee, leaving little win probability for anyone else.
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contenders → deem → anyone
You could argue that’s miscalibrated, though for better or worse, it roughly tracks polls — which are more predictive than you might assume even at this stage — where Vance and Rubio are way ahead of anyone else, including DeSantis.
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Vance → argue → DeSantis
But Vance’s odds have plummeted since Labor Day, when Democrats began to surge in midterm polls.
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Democrats → plummet → polls
I don’t think prediction market traders get everything right, but the notion that a bad midterm result for Trump might encourage voters to look beyond the vice president for a successor seems sound enough.
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result → think → successor
I guess the thinking here is that he’s still MAGA-y enough to get away with criticizing Republicans while offering some degree of proven electoral performance and not being directly tied to the deeply unpopular administration.
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he → guess → administration
His poor performance in the 2024 nomination race raises the question of whether his 2022 popularity surge was an artifact of COVID plus the fact that Florida has now become really red.
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Florida → raise → COVID
Overall, though, the field has opened up, with Vance and Rubio going from a 70 percent combined chance of being the nominee to just under 50 percent now.
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Vance → open → percent
But I’m not here to talk about DeSantis or the rest of the field.
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I → ’m → field
Instead, let’s consider the vice president, whom we’ve sparsely covered at Silver Bulletin.
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we → let → Bulletin
Vance issued his own election post-mortem, which placed almost all of the blame directly or indirectly on the Iran War, where he’s made his disagreements with Trump known through frequent leaks to the press.
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disagreements → issue → press
Some conservatives have started to question whether Vance should even run in 2028.
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Vance → start → 2028
Unless President Trump’s dismal approval ratings improve, the election figures to be an uphill battle for Republicans.
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election → improve → Republicans
Meanwhile, the filtering effect of having to implicitly or explicitly receive Trump’s seal of approval has squashed intellectual diversity in the party.
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effect → filter → party
You can name the exceptions — successful non-MAGA Republicans, like Brian Kemp in Georgia, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and Spencer Cox in Utah — on one hand.
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You → name → hand
And most of them probably aren’t prominent enough or conservative enough to make a serious bid.2
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most → make → them
Trump’s situation could improve.
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situation → improve → ?
Recent political history is full of examples where the conventional wisdom over-extrapolated from the results of a single election.
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wisdom → extrapolate → election
Trump himself has made big comebacks too, returning to the presidency four years after being impeached for the second time.
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Trump → make → time
Gas prices might decline, the war might end, and Democrats have nominated a series of C-tier presidential nominees lately.
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Democrats → decline → nominees
Republicans had to fend off an impeachment attempt against Pete Hegseth led by the outgoing Republican congressman Thomas Massie;
An interest-rate hike has become highly likely after a hot inflation report;
Nvidia CEO and Trump ally Jensen Huang stepped down after acknowledging infidelity amid reports of an affair with a suspected Chinese spy.
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Huang → have → spy
The New York Times also reported an affair with an Nvidia executive who reported to him.
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who → report → him
Trump replaced Susie Wiles as chief of staff with Stephen Miller, who is associated with the hardline immigration policies that even the most moderate Democrats successfully campaigned against last week.
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Democrats → replace → that
Plus, Trump is 80 years old, the point at which visible signs of Joe Biden’s age-related decline really started to accelerate.
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signs → relate → decline
Meanwhile, Republicans have consistently struggled to win elections during the Trump Era when Trump himself wasn’t on the ballot, and he’s notorious for not really caring much about the fate of other Republicans.
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he → struggle → Republicans
Could Vance succeed at distancing himself from Trump on Iran or other issues?
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Vance → succeed → Iran
Before the passage of the 12th Amendment in 1804, a rivalry was unavoidable because the second-place finisher in the presidential race became the vice president.
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finisher → become → race
(Imagine if Kamala Harris were still VP today, but under Trump.)
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Harris → imagine → Trump
In 1832, John Calhoun actually resigned the vice presidency because of his differences with Andrew Jackson.
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Calhoun → resign → Jackson
One of FDR’s vice presidents, John Nance Garner, ran against him for the 1940 nomination.
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One → run → nomination
LBJ bitterly feuded with the Kennedys (mostly Bobby).
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LBJ → feud → Kennedys
And more recently, rioters at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection chanted “Hang Mike Pence” after Pence refused to interrupt the certification of Biden’s win in 2020.
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Pence → chant → 2020
The modern level of high partisan loyalty makes it harder for vice presidents to distance themselves from their boss’s policies, however.
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presidents → make → policies
Harris completely failed to differentiate herself from Biden, and didn’t even try.
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Harris → fail → Biden
Trump’s tendency to punish dissent puts Vance in a box, meanwhile.
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tendency → punish → box
Prior to winning the vice presidency, his only previous bid for office came in 2022, when he won Ohio’s Senate race by 6 points but underperformed Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, who won re-election by 25 points instead.
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who → win → points
…and 70 more, not listed.
The Aporia
