Poll: 41% of conservative voters favor VP Vance in 2028 presidential primary

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(The Center Square) – Vice President JD Vance remains the clear favorite in a prospective 2028 Republican presidential primary, with 41% of Republicans and right-leaning Independents saying they would vote for him in The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll.

The Center Square has conducted four 2028 presidential primary polls since October, and Vance’s latest showing was his strongest to date and the first time his support topped 40%. In the fall of 2025, Vance started off strong with 38% of respondents indicating they would choose the vice president above eight other prominent Republicans if the presidential primary were held that day. His support dipped slightly to 36% in March when six other names were added to the list. It remained there in June, when his strongest surveyed competitor, Donald Trump Jr., was removed after saying publicly he wasn’t interested in running in 2028.

Support for Secretary of State and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, however, nearly doubled when Trump was removed, jumping from 9% in March to 17% in June. Rubio gained a point in August and was respondents’ second choice after Vance, as well as the only other candidate to poll in double digits.

Unlike former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has remained her party’s favorite in The Center Square polling so far, Vance’s support was steady across all demographic groups surveyed, though his strongest groups of supporters were rural voters, President Donald Trump supporters and respondents from the Midwest, at 46%, 45% and 46%, respectively. He also polled well in the Northeast, at 45%. 

While Harris performed best with younger and Black voters and slightly better with women than men, Vance performed nearly equally well among women as among men (41% to 40%) and roughly the same across all age groups and among Republicans and right-leaning Independents. He was least popular with the youngest voters, ages 18-29, but only slightly – nabbing 37% support compared to from 40% to 42% of the other groups.

When voters were broken out according to education level, Harris performed strongest among voters without a high school diploma and weakest among those with postgraduate education, 39% to 16%. And while one of Vance’s strongest demographics was those with a bachelor’s degree at 44%, he still maintained 37% support of those with postgraduate schooling and 38% of those with only a high school diploma.

Vance’s widest demographic variation was by race, with support ranging from 43% among white voters to 31% among Hispanic and Latino voters. He drew 36% support among Black voters and 34% among those identifying as “Other.”

Rubio polled best among voters 65 and older, at 30%, and Hispanic and Latino voters, at 24%, though he still lagged Vance in both.

Noble Predictive Insights conducted the survey from Aug. 12-16 in partnership with The Center Square. Noble polled a weighted sample of 930 registered Republicans and 269 right-leaning independents nationally via an opt-in online panel and text-to-web cell phone messages. The margin of error is +/- 2.0%.