United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is seen as an “excellent” candidate for the presidency by 45% of Republican voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday (12).
The Vice President J.D. Vance appears right behind, with 43%. Among the Democrats, Georgia Senator John Ossoff and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg share the lead, with 29% each.
In both races, the difference is within the 5 percentage point margin of error for voters of each party. None of the four names has announced a run for the White House, however. The primaries that will select the 2028 candidates begin in more than a year.
The poll interviewed 1,705 adults nationwide, including about 500 registered voters from each party. The survey was completed on Monday (9), six days after the midterm elections in which the Democrats gained control of the House and Senate. Ossoff, for example, was reelected with about an 18 percentage point lead over Republican Representative Mike Collins, in a state where Trump had won by two points in 2024.
Among Republicans, the third most favorable name is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered “excellent” by 32%. Almost no Republican voters are unfamiliar with Vance, but about 1 in 6 say they do not know who Rubio is.
On Wednesday (4), Vance blamed the war against Iran for the party’s defeat. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote on the social network X. Questioned by journalists, Trump agreed with the vice. “I think it’s largely true, because it did raise gasoline prices a bit in the short term,” he said.
According to Reuters/Ipsos, Trump’s approval is near the lowest level of his career. On CBS’s “60 Minutes,” aired last Sunday (8), the president was asked if he would back the name in the Republican primaries. “Probably not necessarily,” he replied, and added: “perhaps it’s better if I don’t get involved.”
Buttigieg, who contested the Democratic primaries in 2020, has more advantage in being known, since about one in five Democrats have never heard of him, compared with one in three for Ossoff. Meanwhile, the former vice president (and defeated by Trump in 2024) Kamala Harris received an “excellent” rating from 23% of Democrats, the same rate as California Governor Gavin Nilson.
