AI Election Model - 2028 Republican Presidential Primary [Week 5 - Aug. 22 Update]
JD Vance's big lead makes the 2028 GOP nomination look like his to lose, with no other Republican gaining enough ground to challenge him.
Once again, here’s your Friday afternoon GOP primary update.
No one is surprised, by this point, that Vice President JD Vance is absolutely dominating the possible 2028 GOP field. The top AI models all agree that it’s Vance right now, and no one else even comes close.
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There are a few things that popped up to bolster Vance’s chances even more than last week, which we’ll get to down in the analysis section.
Here’s the model average this week for which candidates these four AI models (Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude) think have the best likelihood to become the 2028 Republican presidential nominee.
AI Model Average - 2028 Republican Nomination (Aug. 22, 2025)
If not for Grok phoning it in, giving Vance only a 4 in 10 chance, the Vice President would’ve topped 50%.
AI Model Average - 2028 Republican Nomination (Aug. 22 vs. Aug. 15)
Here’s the comparison from our last run back on Aug. 15. You can see that Vance’s lead has expanded this week just as it did from the week before that back in July.
Also, sanity has been restored, and Nikki Haley fell back around 2% which is probably still too high. There is/was never a chance Haley would be an acceptable GOP presidential candidate during this period of anti-establishment fervor within the Republican Party base.
But wait, hello Ted Cruz and Tulsi Gabbard, goodbye Tim Scott and Glenn Youngkin? Maybe the world makes less sense than I thought.
AI Model Monthly Average - 2028 Republican Nomination (July 15 to Aug. 22)
As we did for the 2028 Democratic odds, we now have a month’s worth of data on the Republican side, so here’s a chart showing where we started in July and what things look like now.
Vance began in the mid-forties and is pushing towards a greater than 50% chance of becoming the 2028 nominee, according to our models. Behind Vance, Rubio and DeSantis battle for a second-place tier, and Haley fights with Donald Trump Jr. to squeeze out a couple of points.
The chart below is limited to the top 5 candidates that have appeared on our list at least three times over the past month.
Individual Model Data
Finally, here’s the model breakdown with numbers from each platform this week.
ChatGPT (Aug. 22)
46% – JD Vance
12% – Marco Rubio
9% – Ron DeSantis
5% – Robert F. Kennedy Jr
2% – Kristi Noem
Gemini (Aug. 22)
55% - JD Vance
12% - Marco Rubio
9% - Ron DeSantis
6% - Donald Trump Jr
5% - Tulsi Gabbard
Claude (Aug. 22)
48% - JD Vance
12% - Ron DeSantis
10% - Marco Rubio
8% - Robert F. Kennedy Jr
7% - Ted Cruz
Grok (Aug. 22)
40% - JD Vance
20% - Ron DeSantis
15% - Marco Rubio
10% - Nikki Haley
8% - Vivek Ramaswamy
Analysis
Vance has been improving steadily since we started tracking back in mid-July, but he got a noticeable bump this week despite Grok’s poor numbers.
One possibility is that Vance was in the news this week, winning praise from a wealthy and familiar backer if he runs in 2028, according to the New York Post:
Elon Musk is reportedly putting the brakes on launching his new political party in order to maintain ties with prominent Republicans — especially Vice President JD Vance, whom the billionaire is eyeing to back in 2028.
The Tesla CEO is particularly keen on maintaining ties with Vance, who, it has been widely speculated, will inherit the MAGA movement after President Trump completes his second term.
Musk has told associates that forming the “America Party” would damage that relationship, according to the paper.
Musk, the richest man in the world, has expressed to those in his circle that he would financially back Vance if he made a run for the White House in 2028.
Musk has deep pockets but also deep baggage. It’s unclear how personally involved he would be in 2028, but his money might be more important. It’s arguable that if Musk were to throw his financial support behind a single candidate in a hypothetical 2028 GOP primary, that person would have an instant head start. The billionaire Tesla founder is not nearly as disliked within MAGA as he may be with average voters.
Stories like this may continue to bolster Vance’s numbers, which are already incredibly high.
That’s it for this week. Leave a comment below and let me know why Vance is doing so well.
What would Vance have to do to screw this up? There's time to find that out.