'Crude opportunist' Vance will turn on Trump to save presidential bid: analyst

Vice President JD Vance could be building up the nerve to turn on Donald Trump and save his 2028 presidential bid, a political analyst has claimed.

Vance has found himself crumbling in the polling, according to The Guardian's Simon Tisdall, who notes that the vice president has been backing Trump. But doing so has been a detriment to his own projections of being the next President of the United States, Tisdall claims, and Vance may soon hit his breaking point.

Tisdall wrote, "The vice-president is paying a high price for sycophantic loyalty to his boss. His poll ratings are plunging. His MAGA succession hopes falter. He suffers by association – although his own inflammatory statements and misjudgments often make matters worse. Yet amid growing doubts about Trump’s mental health and fitness to govern, Vance remains the White House’s next-in-line.

"Vance’s loyalty is not reciprocated. Remember the fate of Trump’s first vice-president, Mike Pence, who refused to block the 2020 election result. Trump reportedly backed Capitol Hill rioters who wanted Pence hanged for treason.

"If the mood takes him, Trump will happily throw faithful followers under the bus, no matter how they bow and scrape. Ask Pam Bondi. Yet Vance’s loyalties and beliefs are flexible, too."

Tisdall went on to suggest it is not a matter of if Vance betrays Trump to secure his spot as the Republican Party nominee for the 2028 elections, but when.

"In short, Vance is a crude opportunist, a self-proclaimed hillbilly peddling political moonshine," he wrote. "But his position is stronger than other cabinet members in one key respect. Trump cannot fire an elected vice-president – though under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, Vance could help fire Trump.

"A group of Democrats in Congress wants him to join a special commission that would do exactly that if Trump were judged unfit. Vance will bide his time.

"But Trump’s Iran fiasco and increasingly unhinged behavior is eroding grassroots support – and that hurts his deputy, too. Vance’s lead over the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in the notional contest for the Republican nomination is slipping."

Vance is not guaranteed any success if he does break from Trump, with Tisdall arguing it would take a "miracle" to rehabilitate the Vice President in the eyes of the voters.

He wrote, "If, between now and November 2028, he can learn statesmanship, practice humility and moderation, and heed what Abraham Lincoln called the 'better angels of our nature,' he may yet find redemption. At 41, Vance still has time to reinvent himself again."