“President Donald Trump asserted last month that ‘I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else.’ The question hanging over the future of the MAGA movement is who, if anyone, will get to decide what MAGA wants after Trump leaves office?” — Howard Schweitzer, CEO, Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies
The Cozen Lens
- President Trump’s position as leader of the MAGA movement is secure for now but the future of MAGA after him is an open question.
- The signs of Vice President JD Vance’s influence on issues of domestic and foreign policy have grown in recent months as President Trump’s second in command takes on a more front-facing role within the administration.
- This year’s state-level redistricting battles are likely to flip a number of Democrat-controlled congressional districts toward the GOP in next year’s midterms, but a series of recent roadblocks and the overall political environment still gives Democrats a strong chance of flipping control of the House of Representatives.
The Future of MAGA
Cracks in MAGA’s Foundation? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) resignation from Congress shines a spotlight on the state of President Trump’s MAGA movement.
- Previously one of Trump’s fiercest allies on Capitol Hill. Greene broke with the president over issues including AI regulation, foreign policy, and the release of the Epstein files. Greene launched her political career as a MAGA true believer, and her departure raises the question of fissures in MAGA.
- Nevertheless, Trump has a history of falling out with people who were once close to him (Elon Musk is one example). It’s important not to overstate the impact of Greene’s clash with the president on the state of MAGA today.
Trump in Control. For now, at least, MAGA is what Trump says it is.
- While Greene was a staunch MAGA supporter, it’s ultimately Trump who remains in charge of the movement. Without him and his deep wells of personal support among the GOP base, there would be no MAGA.
- Trump reversed the GOP’s declining electoral fortunes following the 2012 presidential election by expanding the party’s coalition to include working-class voters through his MAGA movement. He remains popular within his party. A CBS News/YouGov poll released last month found his approval rating among Republicans to be 89 percent, virtually unchanged since March. Trump’s robust support with the base makes it difficult for elected Republicans to cross him. In the short term, it’s in their interest to embrace him.
- For Trump, MAGA is what he says it is. For example, H-1B visas are a contentious issue among conservatives. In remarks at the recent US-Saudi Investment Forum, Trump defended skilled worker visas. “I love my conservative friends. I love MAGA. But this is MAGA,” he said. “Those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips, and in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great. And those people can go home.”
MAGA After Trump. In the long term, the future of the MAGA movement is uncertain.
- For Republicans, Trump is now a diminishing political asset. As a second-term president, Trump will be out of office in three years. In the Trump era, Republicans have underperformed in elections when Trump himself wasn’t on the ballot – and he won’t be on a ballot again.
- For now, it’s in Republicans’ best interest to keep Trump’s MAGA movement together, but once he is out of the White House, there’s no single clear path forward.
- It’s an open question whether the MAGA movement will survive the end of its charismatic founder’s political career. While Vice President JD Vance may have the strongest claim to be Trump’s heir, he doesn’t enjoy Trump’s tight relationship with the MAGA base (at least not yet). No one else in the GOP does. Trump’s eventual exit from the political stage may open opportunities for other would-be successors seeking to steer the MAGA movement in their own directions but for anyone other than Trump, that could be challenging.
JD Vance’s Influence
The Domestic Front. Originally tasked with serving as President Trump’s “point person” on Capitol Hill, Vice President JD Vance has parlayed his position into a dynamic role within the White House’s legislative and political operation.
- Having learned the lessons of former Vice President Kamala Harris and the baggage that came along with her immigration-focused policy portfolio, Vance and his advisors reportedly established early on that the incoming vice president would eschew any specific policy portfolio. Instead, Vance began his term as the president’s liaison to Capitol Hill, a role he burnished his reputation with by shepherding President Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks through a slim Senate GOP majority. In the cases of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, it was Vance who worked the phones to win over the key GOP swing votes, a dynamic they themselves acknowledged and thanked him for.
- While Vance cut his teeth on cabinet nominations, it’s his more recent involvement with the passage and implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) that bolstered his national profile. As Vance himself recently told NBC, the vice president was intimately involved in whipping the OBBB through Congress, but it was Trump’s decision to task Vance with selling the benefits of the bill to voters that could pay dividends for both Vance and the administration. The vice president has already headlined numerous swing state rallies to tout the bill’s benefits, a not so subtle opportunity to get in front of voters who could prove pivotal come 2028.
- Even more noteworthy is Vance’s unconventional political role. As the finance chair of the Republican National Committee, the New York Times reports that Vance has headlined numerous high-dollar fundraisers at which he’s been able “…to mingle with prospective donors under the auspices of the Republican National Committee,” an advantage that no other 2028 GOP hopeful will have. Meanwhile, Vance’s ever strengthening relationship with Turning Point USA has teed him up for a possible early 2028 endorsement from the organization, a move that could provide him with a unique bridge to younger voters. In each case, the expanded domestic policy roles have allowed Vance to grow his public profile without yet stepping on Trump’s toes, an important dynamic for anyone hoping to carry the torch of the MAGA movement in 2028.
Looking Abroad. As a former senator, congressional liaison was a natural fit for Vance, but in an administration focused heavily on foreign policy, Vance’s ability to carve out a distinct role for himself on global affairs is the clearest sign yet of his growing influence.
- Vance found his foothold on foreign policy less in the details and more in serving as the administration’s explainer-in-chief to the MAGA base. Back in June, as Trump mulled his options on Iran, it was Vance who delivered the lengthy explainer via social media as to how a strike would align with an America-first approach to foreign policy. More recently, it’s again been Vance leading the charge to back boat strikes in the Caribbean. As former House GOP aide Brendan Buck recently told the New York Times, “[Vance] accomplishes two things at once by being the president’s chief promoter and defender…He is helping the president in the short term, but also demonstrating to the base that he can own the libs, he can fight the woke on the left.”
- Even so, Vance has more recently expanded his own foreign policy chops, most notably with regard to Ukraine. While Vance has always been at the forefront of the administration’s Euro-skeptic approach, it’s in the latest round of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine that Vance’s opinions on Europe, and on the Ukraine conflict specifically, have featured prominently. Axios reports that it was Vance, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who helped launch November’s peace negotiations, arguing to Trump that the administration’s 28-point plan could bring about an end to the war. Vance’s direct involvement in the ongoing talks was solidified by Trump’s selection of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a law school classmate and confidant of Vance’s, as a conduit to Ukraine in the negotiations.
- Outside of war, Vance also helped achieve a key priority of Trump’s in negotiating a solution to the uncertain fate of TikTok in the US. According to reporting from the Washington Post, in September, as China was “slow-walking” negotiations to spin-off TikTok’s US operations, Vance advised US negotiators, who were in the midst of meetings with their Chinese counterparts, to threaten that the administration would let the app go dark if a deal wasn’t reached that day. Trump concurred with Vance per the Post and, a day later, a deal was reached, although details remain scarce.
How Much Does Redistricting Matter?
The State(s) of Redistricting. Republicans attempts to gerrymander have been met with Democratic counters and other roadblocks.
- It all began when Republicans in Texas redrew its congressional maps, with the goal of electing between three and five more GOP lawmakers in 2026. As someone who is inordinately taken with the midterm elections, President Trump saw an avenue to acquire political gain and instructed state officials to take it. This kicked off a whole process; North Carolina and Missouri shortly followed, along with Ohio, which was required by law to redistrict anyway.
- Democrats responded in kind in California via a constitutional amendment presented directly to voters that will permit the party to almost exactly cancel out Texas’ gerrymander. In Utah, Democrats benefit from a court order enforcing the partisan gerrymandering ban in the state’s constitution, netting them another seat. Texas’ new maps were ruled unconstitutional but then appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the decision in an unsigned emergency order last week and cleared the way for Texas to use the gerrymander. Although unlikely, if the Supreme Court releases a ruling in a separate case and both fully invalidates a section of the Voting Rights Act and does so early enough in the year, it could lead to a massive twelve-seat pickup in the South. Missouri’s maps could be blocked though if opponents collect enough signatures to force a statewide referendum.
- Trump has leaned on other Republican states to redistrict but faces tougher internal opposition from GOP state lawmakers in these states. Things seem most certain in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis recently confirmed that the state would redraw its map next year. Indiana House Republicans have passed a gerrymandering proposal, but it’s not confirmed that the plan has the votes to pass the state’s upper chamber. Other efforts in Kansas, Nebraska, and New Hampshire have largely petered out.
- Democrats, for their part, intend to repeat in Virginia what they did in California (including the requirement that voters approve of a constitutional amendment in a referendum). Maryland’s governor has moved forward with a redistricting commission despite the continued opposition of the State Senate president. Further gerrymanders are theoretically possible in Illinois and Oregon but neither have seen any positive indicative news in recent days.
Who Comes Out on Top? The best guess as to the end result of redistricting based on current evidence is that it represents a slightly higher seawall for the GOP against an underlying political environment friendly to a Democratic wave.
- The story of redistricting is not yet over but a prospective counting of Republicans’ gains in an optimistic yet still plausible scenario for them (all currently GOP-redrawn states plus Indiana and Florida) would result in 15 pickups, which, offset against Democratic gains in California, Utah, and Virginia, nets them eight or nine seats. An equivalent scenario for Democrats, which includes blocking redistricting in Missouri and an unsuccessful GOP attempt in Indiana, could yield nine pickups, leaving a Democratic gain of two to four seats on net. Recent Democratic victories could have the effect of either further incentivizing Republicans to gerrymander to avoid electoral disaster or lead them to be more cautious lest they accidentally create a dummymander.
- On a national scale, before the mid-decade redistricting started, Democrats needed to win the national popular vote by 2 points on average to retake the House. With the currently drawn maps in every state plus Florida and Virginia, Democrats would have to increase their margin to 1.0 points to win a House majority. This is a noticeable difference but one that will prove largely academic if the current political environment persists. The Democratic lead on the generic ballot is currently four to five points, and this margin typically only grows stronger for the party out of power as the midterm elections approach. If nothing changes (a sizable assumption), the generally friendly pro-Democratic environment should swamp Republican efforts to bolster their lead.
- On the other hand, in an era of ultra-polarization and a shrinking universe of persuadable voters, winning a district previously won by Trump by a slightly larger margin isn’t a trivial task. The GOP’s flipping of any seats is meaningful given the small size of the playing field next year. According to race ratings from Sabato’s Crystal Ball before any redistricting occurred, 209 House seats at least leaned toward Democrats, 207 seats at least leaned toward the GOP, and 19 seats were rated as toss-ups. Given this, even minor changes to the map or the environment could tilt the scales one way or the other. Five seats is more than the GOP’s current House majority; in 2024, a redrawn North Carolina gave Republicans three more seats, the exact size of their majority. And even if Democrats do prove triumphant, limiting the size of that majority would threaten the caucus’ ability to operate effectively.
