Cruz vs Vance: Texas senator considering 2028 run as non-MAGA option, report says

Texas senator is ‘seriously’ eyeing bid to challenge MAGA successor, likely the vice president, in 2028 according to allies

A Texas senator who was once Donald Trump’s strongest opposition during the latter’s first bid for the presidency could make a return in 2028 to do battle with MAGA’s chosen successor.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Ted Cruz, 55, is gearing up for a potential second presidential run in 2028 as his party eyes the first election cycle without Trump’s name in the running for the top job in more than 10 years.

According to the Post, one of Cruz’s top allies in Washington and a leader on the pro-Israel right, Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization for America, believes that Cruz is “seriously” considering a White House bid. The Texas senator is already fielding calls from other allies urging him to run, Klein told the Post.

Another person close to the senator was quoted as saying that Cruz is eyeing a bid.

It comes as Cruz continues to publicly feud with Tucker Carlson, often seen as another potential figure in a hypothetical 2028 Republican primary. Carlson, now an independent media host after leaving Fox News, has emerged as one of the right’s most vocal critics of Israel and U.S. neoconservative policy in the Middle East, something Cruz is seen as championing both in the present and during his unsuccessful 2016 bid for the presidency.

A report in the Washington Post indicates that Ted Cruz is preparing for a second try at the White House (Getty)

Cruz, in the years since his failed run, has launched his own podcast and poured his time and effort into building his brand as a commentator with younger audiences. It’s a strategic move: those younger Republicans spurned Cruz for Trump in 2016, and will be key to winning a 2028 primary if Cruz is up against the most likely successor to Trump’s MAGA White House brand, Vice President JD Vance.

Vance, who leads all available polling on the 2028 Republican side, is a veteran of the podcasting and right-wing independent media circuit. Even with Cruz’s own foray into expanding his brand beyond older Republicans who latched on to him during the Tea Party movement, the vice president has a running head start among the party’s younger, more politically extreme MAGA base.

It makes the potential for a matchup all the more interesting, however, given the aversion of some of Trump’s allies to Vance taking over the mantle given the vice president’s strong ties to Peter Thiel and the conservative wing of Silicon Valley’s elite. The likes of Steve Bannon could end up caught in the middle or endorsing a third choice if asked to pick between Vance and Cruz, who represents an interventionist wing of the party the War Room host and former insider has relentlessly sought to quash.

JD Vance, Trump’s vice president, continues to lead polling of the hypothetical 2028 GOP primary (AP)

Commentator Tucker Carlson is one of Cruz’s top critics and opposes his calls for military action against Iran and Venezuela (AFP via Getty Images)

Cruz could be a longshot candidate in 2028 for the reasons above. His on-camera clash with Carlson resonated loudly across conservative media earlier this year as the right-wing host grilled the senator on topics including Iran and generally portrayed his opponent as inept and unknowledgable about foreign policy positions he claimed to support.

"How many people live in Iran, by the way?" Carlson asked Cruz in one exchange during the interview, prompting the senator to say he didn’t know.

"At all?" Carlson shot back. "You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?"

Cruz’s pro-intervention stances have often translated to policies and actions that are some of the least popular of the president’s decisions among his MAGA base, including the buildup of military forces near Venezuela and escalation of a military campaign against small boats in the Caribbean the U.S. says are ferrying drugs.

The Texas senator has accused critics of the president’s military strikes, which many experts say are blatantly illegal, of supporting the socialist regime in Venezuela led by Nicolas Maduro.