Secretary of State Marco Rubio has opened a commanding lead over Vice President JD Vance in a new national poll testing the 2028 Republican presidential primary, a dramatic reversal from just five months ago, when Vance held a 24-point advantage over his would-be rival.

The AtlasIntel survey, conducted May 4, 7 among 2,069 American adults, found 45.4% of Republican respondents preferred Rubio for the GOP's 2028 nomination. Vance finished second at 29.6%. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis drew 11.2%, while 10.3% of Republicans said their preference was not among the named choices. Vivek Ramaswamy, presently running for governor of Ohio, registered 1.4%.

The swing is stark. In AtlasIntel's previous national poll last December, Vance led Rubio 46.7% to 22.6%. In roughly five months, Rubio gained more than 22 points among Republican respondents while Vance dropped 17.

Trump floats a 'dream team', but withholds an endorsement

The poll numbers land amid growing public speculation about the post-Trump succession. On Monday, President Trump polled a White House crowd himself, asking, "Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?" He then mused that it sounded "like a good ticket."

Trump went further, calling the pairing a "dream team", then quickly pulled back.

"By the way, I do believe that's a dream team. But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance!"

Kellie Meyer, posting on X under the handle @KellieMeyerNews, described the scene: Trump appeared to gauge crowd enthusiasm for both men and floated a potential Vance-Rubio 2028 ticket. By the cheers, Meyer wrote, Trump "seemed to say it would be Vance as President."

That crowd read, however, does not match the polling. Rubio's double-digit lead among Republican respondents nationally suggests his support extends well beyond any single room.

Rubio's rise, Vance's likability problem

The numbers carry a warning for Vance beyond the primary horse race. Among the general public, 58% said they held a negative image of the vice president, against just 37% positive. Rubio's numbers were closer to even: 51% negative, 46% positive. Neither man is broadly popular, but Rubio's deficit is nine points narrower.

That gap matters in a general election. And it has not gone unnoticed by political observers. Longtime commentator Mark Halperin recently suggested Vance might not even run in 2028, while still identifying him as the man most likely to succeed Trump as the GOP standard-bearer. Halperin framed the likability question bluntly:

"I will say that in the next two years, as people in the party and the media are comparing Rubio and Vance side-by-side, I don't think Vance can win'em, win the performance competition. I don't think the-, I, don't, and the likability. I may be wrong, but I just think Rubio has improved enough and the perceptions are such that Vance is going to have a hard time of people looking at him in a press conference, in an interview on the stump, whether he drops his nasty tweet persona or not, I think he's going to have a hard time winning that."

Halperin's assessment is one commentator's read, not gospel. But the AtlasIntel numbers give it a data point to lean on. Rubio has surged in 2028 betting markets as well, suggesting the shift is showing up across multiple measures of political sentiment.

Friends, not rivals, or so the theory goes

Halperin offered a more elaborate theory about the 2028 landscape, one built on the personal relationship between Rubio and Vance. He argued that defeating an incumbent vice president seeking the presidency requires an opponent willing to go scorched, and that the two men's friendship makes that unlikely.

"These two guys are genuine friends, and even though people tell me I'm naive, you cannot beat an incumbent vice president running for president unless you rip their face off. That's just the way our politics work. So I do not think they'll run against each other."

Halperin raised the possibility that Vance might sit 2028 out entirely, citing the demands of young fatherhood, the Vances are expecting another child, and Rubio's children are still relatively young. Both men, Halperin said, understand the scrutiny a presidential campaign would bring.

If Vance chooses not to run, Halperin predicted Rubio would be "pretty close to a lock for the nomination," with the backing of both the president and the vice president. If both run, Halperin floated the idea they might announce as a joint ticket from the start and potentially "raise $2 billion before the New Hampshire primary."

That last figure is speculative, but it reflects a broader point: the Republican donor class and activist base are already gaming out scenarios. And right now, Rubio is the one with momentum. His high-profile Vatican meeting with Pope Leo XIV, a diplomatic moment that went to the secretary of state rather than the vice president, only reinforced the perception that Rubio is accumulating stature on the world stage.

What the numbers don't tell you

Polls taken more than two years before a primary deserve a healthy dose of skepticism. The AtlasIntel survey sampled 2,069 American adults broadly; the exact size of the Republican subsample and the margin of error for that subsample were not specified. Nor was the precise wording of the nomination-preference question.

Name recognition, current job title, and media exposure all distort early polling. Rubio, as the nation's top diplomat, has enjoyed sustained visibility on trade negotiations, foreign summits, and national security matters. Vance, by contrast, occupies a role that historically generates fewer headlines, unless the vice president actively seeks them.

It is also worth noting that Vance dominated the CPAC 2028 straw poll with 53%, even as Rubio surged to 35% in that same survey. CPAC attendees skew toward grassroots conservative activists, a different slice of the electorate than a national sample. The gap between those two data points suggests Vance retains deep loyalty among the party's most engaged base voters, even as Rubio gains ground in the broader Republican universe.

And Vance has not been idle. He has been courting Iowa Republicans as 2028 chatter intensifies, laying groundwork in the state that kicks off the nomination calendar.

The real question for Republicans

The 2028 primary is still a long way off. But the trajectory matters. Five months ago, Vance led Rubio by nearly 25 points among Republican respondents in the same polling outfit's survey. Now Rubio leads by nearly 16. That is a 40-point swing, the kind of movement that reshapes how donors, operatives, and candidates themselves calculate their next moves.

For Republican voters, the question is straightforward: who can win? Rubio's favorability gap with the general public is narrower than Vance's. His diplomatic portfolio gives him a record to run on that extends beyond domestic policy fights. And Trump's refusal to endorse anyone, even while calling a Vance-Rubio pairing a "dream team", keeps the field genuinely open.

Whether the two men run against each other, run together, or one steps aside, the early data is clear on one thing: the assumption that JD Vance was the automatic heir to the Trump coalition no longer holds.

Assumptions are not entitlements. In Republican politics, you earn it, or someone else does.