Is JD Vance still the heir apparent? Nick Freitas says the midterms gave him a real rival.

BlazeTV host Nick Freitas believes the midterm wipeout has turned the 2028 GOP race from a JD Vance coronation into a real contest of Vance vs. Ron DeSantis.

Freitas says he called it before the election: “If there’s one person outside the administration that could really challenge and be a candidate, it’s Ron DeSantis, because of what he did in Florida.”

Producer Christian agrees, noting that the term-limited Florida governor is “currently [his] favorite governor in the entire country,” but argues that DeSantis “did hurt himself when he primaried Trump in 2024.”

“There’s a lot of people now that I don’t think are going to give him a shot,” Christian adds.

Freitas disagrees. “If the Republicans had done pretty well or this wasn’t a big wipeout in the midterms, then I would say you were probably right,” he says.

Donald Trump, he explains, “was the one guy where it seemed like no matter what he did, what he said, MAGA was with him no matter what.” But the midterms showed that “there [were] a lot of people that were so furious” that even Trump took a hit.

Gone are the days, Freitas argues, when Trump’s endorsement was all someone needed to win a primary.

“It used to be that if Trump endorsed you, that was it. You won your primary,” he tells Christian. “I don't think that's going to be the case, especially over the next two years of Democrats doing nothing but hammering him.”

While Freitas believes that much of conservatives’ anger is really channeled toward “the Republican Congress,” he says Trump took some of the blame too, pointing to “the Iran war, the Epstein files,” and economic messaging that was “a little bit tone-deaf.”

“I don't think that means Trump is out or MAGA's dead,” he says.

Rather, he predicts “a pivot toward a more America First” agenda.

“America First as far as to say, ‘Look, insofar as we're involved in foreign things, there has to be a very, very clear benefit to the United States and no long-term wars,’” Freitas explains.

So who will lead the party into 2028?

“Before, there was very little question that JD Vance was kind of the heir apparent. … There will now be questions on that with respect to Ron DeSantis,” Freitas says.

“The next two years are going to be, I think, largely a question at this point of: Is JD Vance going to be the heir apparent, or is it going to be Ron DeSantis?” he continues.

Christian, however, believes there’s still the possibility of others “throwing their hat in the ring,” but he predicts it won’t end well for them.

“You're going to have the libertarians trying to stage a comeback and the neocons trying to stage a comeback,” he says.

“You're going to have like a rehash of, say, 2012-style politics briefly, where you're going to have these movements that are really just not fit for the moment and are on their way out the door, but some people haven't gotten the memo,” he adds.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms. Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

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