Mitt Romney revealed where he thinks his party is headed in the age of Trump and who will be the newly elected president’s successor as head of MAGA.
The retiring senator took part in CNN’s State of the Union address, where he reflected on his time in public life and how the Republican Party has changed since he was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
“MAGA is the Republican Party, and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” the Utah lawmaker said.
“If you were to ask me who the nominee would be in 2028, I think it would be J.D. Vance,” Romney said.
Trump, 78, is term-limited, so unless the MAGA movement is able to amend the U.S. Constitution, it will have to find a new standard-bearer in the next presidential election.
The 77-year-old called the vice president-elect “smart, articulate, part of the MAGA movement.”
Outgoing Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) shares his thoughts on the future of the Republican Party and who he expects the nominee to be in 2028
It’s a sharp turn for Romney, who once told The Atlantic when the vice president-elect was running for Senate that he didn’t know if he could “despise anyone more than J.D. Vance.”
“It’s not like you become famous and powerful because you become a United States senator. It really is? Are you selling yourself so cheap?’ Romney said about Vance at the time.
Now Vance, who was once a fierce Trump critic before completely changing his tune to run for Senate in 2022, is poised to be first in line for the presidency.
When asked about his harsh previous criticism of Vance on CNN, Romney dismissed the comments as “a long time ago” and said they have worked together in the Senate ever since.
Romney is not alone in his prediction for 2028. An Emerson College poll after the election showed Vance as the clear frontrunner for the Republican ticket in 2028, with 30 percent among Republican voters.
Although he was the potential candidate with the most support, a whopping 51 percent were still undecided.
For now, Vance is helping Trump Cabinet nominees navigate Senate introductions as they prepare for potentially brutal confirmation hearings next year.
But he will have to walk a fine line to stay on Trump’s good side for the next four years in the White House, or Vance could go the way of the newly elected president’s first vice president, Mike Pence, who is the Republican president has viciously attacked in politics. end.

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance at the U.S. Capitol as he helps Trump Cabinet nominees meet with senators ahead of their confirmation hearings. Vance is seen as a GOP frontrunner for 2028

President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance at the Army-Navy football game on December 14 in Landover, MD
As for Romney, he believes it is the Democratic party that is in trouble, not the Republican party that is looking ahead.
The senator argued that the Republican Party has become one of the “working class and middle class voters” and gave Trump some credit for this. He also said Democrats pushed them out.
The Republican senator, who was the Republican nominee in 2012 but lost the general election, wondered how Democrats had so misread the mood of the country.
Romney was a fierce critic of Trump and voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
But the outgoing senator signaled he is willing to give the president-elect the benefit of the doubt ahead of his second term.
“I am not in favor of President Trump. “I did not support him in this election or the last time he ran, largely because of character issues, and I hope we see improvement in the coming years,” Romney said Sunday.
Although Romney will not be in the Senate to help confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees, he encouraged his colleagues to take their role in the process seriously.
“The Senate has a responsibility to make sure these people are legitimate.”There is no skeleton that could embarrass them or the country and also determine their eligibility for the position for which they have been nominated,” he said.
“I expect them to carry out that responsibility consciously and with dedication,” he added.
Romney once said he wrote his wife Ann’s name down for president in 2016, but he declined to share who he voted for in 2024.