Sarah Longwell, the publisher of The Bulwark, runs weekly focus groups of Trump voters to see how their views are changing over time. She has recently noticed a surprising trend: When she asks voters about whom they’d like to see as a future president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is garnering what she describes as a “strange new respect” from participants. Simultaneously, Vice President JD Vance is receiving more and more criticism.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Rubio has a good shot in a potential future presidential run, or that Vance will lose his lead in 2028 polling. But it does tell us something about how Trump supporters see the current moment. It seems likely that, at a time when President Donald Trump is increasingly over his head with an unpopular war and rising energy prices, many are craving what Rubio symbolizes as a competent pre-Trump-era Republican.
Rubio’s growing popularity plausibly represents a growing appetite for normie politics.
As Longwell explained in an article this week for The Atlantic, Trump voter focus group participants are increasingly describing Rubio as a “stabilizing” force with impressive capabilities. She quotes a focus group participant — Boris from Texas — praising Rubio as “a real statesman.” Andrea from Georgia says Rubio has been “killing it from an international policy perspective.” Dave from West Virginia says he believes Rubio is “doing a good job” and “speaks well” while “wearing multiple hats” — a reference to Rubio also holding the title of national security adviser. (He was also previously acting USAID administrator and acting archivist.)
The common theme is that Rubio’s star is rising based on the perception that he’s a high-functioning, competent operator who can get things done. Rubio played a key role in the ouster of Venezuela’s former president, Nicolás Maduro, in an operation that was, while substantively reprehensible, pulled off swiftly and smoothly. Rubio is also arguably the calmest and most articulate top Trump official when it comes to laying out and defending the president’s foreign policy maneuvers. (This is not to say Rubio is successful at it, but compared to many of his peers, he’s been relatively free of unforced errors.)
Some of Rubio’s higher station comes from what he has not done. In an administration plagued by scandals, constant turnover, a steady stream of reports about the incompetence of loyalists and optics-obsessed cabinet members, Rubio stands out for not standing out. He’s handling major policies as the country’s top diplomat, but he doesn’t aim to create fodder for viral videos, and there isn’t a constant drip of reports from underlings describing him as failing at the most basic elements of his job, as there has been with officials such as FBI Director Kash Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. As one of Longwell’s two-time Trump voter focus group participants summed it up: “Marco Rubio, when you look at the totality of who surrounds Trump, and particularly as it relates to defense and international policy — he seems the most normal.”
It’s not just in focus groups. Esteem for Rubio is also growing among right-wing activists. In the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual straw poll of attendees, Rubio leapt from 3% to 35% as respondents’ preferred choice in the 2028 Republican presidential primary between spring 2025 and spring 2026. (Vance led in both of those polls, but he dropped from 61% in 2025 to 53% in 2026.)
The explanation for Vance’s more incrementally declining reputation is less clear. It may be due to his recent political missteps, including his sparring with Pope Leo XIV and campaigning fruitlessly for a failed Central European autocrat. It might be that he is more closely identified with Trump and hardcore MAGA ideology, and so Trump’s plunging ratings weigh more on Vance than other administration officials. Or, somewhat paradoxically, it might be — as many of Longwell’s quoted focus group participants suggest — that Vance comes across as less sincere rhetorically and seems to have “sold his soul” for proximity to power.
Sometimes these things boil down to vibe. Even though both Rubio and Vance, like most of their GOP colleagues, have shifted many of their political views during the Trump era, Vance can come across as more try-hard than Rubio, perhaps because of the theatrical zeal with which he speaks, or because the very premise of his relatively short career in national politics was rejecting Trumpism.
Whatever the case, Rubio’s growing popularity plausibly represents a growing appetite for normie politics and straightforward competence in certain sectors of the right — which makes sense at a time when Trump’s presidency is going off the rails in a way it hasn’t before. Maybe people are realizing there’s a downside to electing the guy who said he’d burn it all down.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.