My years of doing business in the United States have taught me to be wary of midterm popularity polls, because they have about as much predictive value as a weather forecast from three days ago. In recent weeks, Trump’s approval rating among the general public has remained at 39%, and that number is being circulated in the media as if it were a definitive verdict on the state of the Republican Party.
Those who read that percentage without looking at what’s happening within the Republican electoral base are jumping to conclusions, because that base—which is what mobilizes votes in the states that matter—remains the most loyal and best-organized in the U.S. political system. The November midterm elections will bring their own results, and the party will have to accept them. But while Washington debates the short term, the conversation that’s really making a difference is taking place elsewhere.
Trump will not be able to run in 2028. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution prevents him from doing so, and that limitation makes the Republican succession the party’s most pressing strategic issue at this time. The good news—which isn’t getting as much attention as the headlines about the president’s popularity—is that the Republican Party has two strong candidates with Trump’s explicit endorsement to compete for the presidential nomination: JD Vance and Marco Rubio.
Vance is the candidate of the party’s most conservative wing, the figure the MAGA movement recognizes as its own, and he has the ability to mobilize that base with an intensity that few rivals can match in a primary where that energy is decisive. His profile embodies the most direct continuation of the project Trump built, and in that sense, he arrives with a legitimacy within the party that needs no introduction.
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Rubio, for his part, comes from the State Department with a security agenda that speaks the language best understood by the markets and Washington’s allies. His decision to review the public social media history of those seeking to enter the country—as part of the immigration screening process to identify high-risk individuals before they cross the border—is the kind of measure that defines someone who understands that 21st-century security is also defended in the digital realm.
Both Vance and Rubio represent something that the markets value above any popularity poll: the continuity of an economic agenda that has kept the United States in its current position as a technological, financial, and military power.
A businessperson making investment decisions with a five-year horizon doesn’t look at November’s approval ratings; he looks at who will be in the White House in January 2029 and what agenda that person will bring with him.
The Republican Party has reasons to worry about November, but it also has something its opponents cannot erase with a poll: a loyal electoral base, two potential successors, and three years to decide what it wants to do with Trump’s legacy. The next battle has already begun.
