Votes were still being counted in their party’s worst midterm defeat in a half-century when top Republicans looking toward 2028 began trying to separate themselves from President Donald Trump. “The reason we lost is the war (in Iran),” posted Vice President JD Vance, who had been privately critical of Trump’s decision to attack Iran but publicly supportive during the campaign. "It should have ...

U.S. President Donald Trump shouts back a response to the media on the South Lawn of the White House after landing aboard Marine One on Nov. 8, 2026, in Washington, D.C..

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images North America/TNS

Votes were still being counted in their party’s worst midterm defeat in a half-century when top Republicans looking toward 2028 began trying to separate themselves from President Donald Trump.

“The reason we lost is the war (in Iran),” posted Vice President JD Vance, who had been privately critical of Trump’s decision to attack Iran but publicly supportive during the campaign.

"It should have been brief, decisive, and over — it needs to end," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has likewise publicly backed the inconclusive eight-month war.

It fell to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while agreeing the war was “a big, big drag” politically, to define the real stakes. If Trump doesn’t end it, he said, “it’s going to be devastating to his ability to get anything done, and it is going to be very, very difficult for Republicans” in 2028.

His comments reflected the fact that, while it is easy for ambitious Republicans to criticize specific Trump policies, that may not be the GOP’s path to 2028 success. Republican hopes for keeping the presidency will be shaped by how the current president performs in the final two years of his second term.

That’s because, while the name heading the ticket will change, the next Republican nominee will inevitably be seeking — openly or implicitly — a Trump third term. Even under the best of circumstances, such bids have usually failed.

In the eight elections since World War II in which one or the other party sought to extend its presidency beyond two terms, only one succeeded. That was in 1988, when President Ronald Reagan’s continuing popularity helped Vice President George Bush win the election to succeed him.

In three other instances, even the continuing high popularity of the retiring president proved insufficient to help elect his chosen successor – Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon in 1960, Bill Clinton to Al Gore in 2000, and Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Besides, second terms — and especially their final two years — have proved treacherous for every recent president – including Reagan, who survived a major scandal involving arms sales to Iran.

Eisenhower suffered ill health and a major recession, Richard Nixon was forced to resign, Clinton was impeached over an affair with an intern, George W. Bush was done in by war in Iraq and recession at home, and a GOP Congress balked Barack Obama.

Trump, historically unpopular, led his party to its worst midterm showing in a generation because of his decision to attack Iran, its attendant economic impact and the general sense he prefers pursuing his personal interests, like massive monuments to himself, to the public’s interests, like curbing inflation.

Initially, after last week’s political thrashing gave the Democrats both houses of Congress, Trump sounded conciliatory, suggesting his goal in using his veto pen would be to facilitate compromises with his opponents.

But he gave no sign of abandoning his inclinations toward monarchical grandeur. He announced an executive order seeking to perpetuate his Versailles-like gilding of the Oval Office.

But speculation about his conciliatory intentions vanished last Friday when he replaced Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff with his single most combative assistant, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of his unpopular immigration deportations and a firm supporter of the war.

That choice, decried by Democrats and some Republicans, signaled Trump was girding for two years of partisan warfare against a majority determined to use its oversight powers to probe the widespread allegations of administration corruption and its legislative clout to roll back Trump policies cutting health care aid, raising tariffs and pursuing the war.

That was underscored when Trump’s enforcer, Attorney General Todd Blanche, warned congressional probers they could face Justice Department scrutiny.

The more partisan the next two years, the harder it will be for would-be Republican candidates within the administration, like Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to craft separate political personas from the administration.

Even DeSantis, who embraced Trump after ineptly opposing him in 2024, might find it awkward to run as an administration critic. While the election confirmed Trump’s lost standing with the overall voting public, he remains popular with Republicans who will choose the party’s 2028 presidential nominee.

Besides, each hopeful has shortcomings: Vance showed this year he has all of Trump’s nastiness but none of his roguish charm, DeSantis was both disorganized and often surly as a 2024 candidate. Rubio, outwardly the most appealing, seems aware it might be worth waiting. And Cruz, the most openly vowing to run, is hardly Mr. Personality. No wonder the talk of others like retiring Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

However Trump chooses to exert his influence – by endorsing a single successor or opposing others – he will likely play a far more influential role in the process than most outgoing presidents. Prospects like Cruz and Kemp might suffer from past tangles with him.

As for Vance, the ostensible front-runner, satirist Andy Borowitz mocked the vice president’s past switches — from being a 2016 Trump critic to a 2022 backer, from religious evangelical to atheist to Catholic. Now, he said, Vance is converting to Islam and becoming known as JD Abdul Zohran El-Sayed.

But in the real world, it will be very hard for the vice president – or any other GOP hopeful – to switch from being a 2026 Trump supporter to 2028 Trump critic – and win.

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