2028 Republican Nominee: Cruz Says It Isn't Settled Yet

Prices as of August 26, 2026, 7:42 p.m. Eastern. Record compiled from 30 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.

On Wednesday, August 26, on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's podcast, Sen. Ted Cruz said, per the Texas Tribune, "it's no secret that I want to be president." Asked whether the party had already coalesced behind Vice President JD Vance, he answered: "Oh no. There's going to be a full discussion about who we are and what we believe." As of 7:42 p.m. Eastern the same day, the people with money on the question had heard him and shrugged. On Kalshi, where a price in cents is a probability, the contract that pays $1 if Vance wins and accepts the 2028 Republican nomination is quoted at 43 cents by buyers and 44 by sellers: about a 44% chance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is 22 to 23. Add the top two and you get 67 cents, two-thirds of the board in two names. Cruz is quoted at 1.1 to 1.3 cents, a penny, and he was a penny before he spoke. The market's answer to "who will be the Republican nominee in 2028" is: Vance, more likely than anyone else, and still less likely than the rest of the field combined.

What did move was the tape on Cruz's own name. At 1:57 p.m. Eastern, one buyer swept 93,832 Cruz contracts at 1.2 cents in a single second, about $1,126 at risk, the most any of the 38 names on this board traded all day. The price did not budge. That is this market in one trade: plenty of people will pay a penny for a senator who says he wants it, nobody will pay two.

If you came here for a date, there are two, and neither is soon. Vance told CBS Sunday Morning on June 14, per The Independent, that "Usha and I will absolutely sit down and talk about what comes next for our family" after November's midterms. And the president, who would settle this race with one sentence, said on May 12, per Time, "That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance." The nomination itself is accepted in Houston, at a convention whose dates are not yet set. The Democratic side of the same question is a different market entirely; at its August 25 refresh, no name there was above 19 cents.

The Vice President Who Won't Commit, The Secretary Who Already Deferred

Vance has said the same thing for a year in different rooms. On September 6, 2025, on Lara Trump's Fox News program, per Fox News: "If I do end up running, it's not going to be given to me—either on the Republican side or on the national side." On June 14, on CBS: "The way I make decisions is, I try not to make them until I absolutely must," and on the president, "I have no doubt that the president of the United States is going to be very supportive of anything that I ultimately decide to do. But we really just haven't talked about what that thing will be." In the meantime he is doing the front-runner's job. On August 21 he went home to Middletown, Ohio, for a $1 billion steel-plant announcement and endorsed Sen. Jon Husted and Vivek Ramaswamy for governor; NBC News, per Political Wire, called it "a preview of the heavy load he will carry for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party on the midterm campaign trail." His national standing is the soft spot: Civiqs had him at 39% favorable and 54% unfavorable on August 19, with 83% of Republicans favorable.

Rubio's position is the cleaner one, and the market prices it at half of Vance's. To Vanity Fair in December 2025, as quoted by ABC News on March 16: "If JD Vance runs for president, he's going to be our nominee, and I'll be one of the first people to support him." The same ABC story reported Republican donors "quietly discussing" a draft-Rubio effort for after the midterms, driven by donors, not by him; one senior operative's reply, "Donors don't pick the nominee — the base picks," is the counterargument the market seems to believe. The polls explain why 23 cents is not lower. Emerson College had the primary at Vance 36, Rubio 35 on May 24 and 25, from 52 to 20 in February; Spencer Kimball wrote that "the potential 2028 contenders now compete evenly." The UNH Granite State Poll on July 23, per Fox News, had New Hampshire at Vance 36, Rubio 26, from 53 to 7 in February. At the Western Conservative Summit on August 5, per Colorado Politics, 500-plus attendees picked Rubio 57 to 21. And Emerson's August 16 to 17 survey ran both men against Democrats: Rubio led Kamala Harris by 5, Harris led Vance by 4. The president has enjoyed the ambiguity: on June 3, on the New York Post's podcast, per Time: "I think the two of them running together as a team would be very unbeatable." Who sits on top of that ticket is the question this market exists to price, and the running-mate board prices the other half.

The Senator Going To Iowa, And The Tape Nobody Else Could Move

Cruz's campaign-in-all-but-name has a paper trail. On January 14, per NBC News, he had clashed with the administration over its NASA nominee, warned about antisemitism inside the party, and held a "friendraiser" in Miami; the same story quoted Glenn Youngkin, "I think Vice President Vance would be a great nominee," and reported that Turning Point USA's Erika Kirk had already endorsed Vance. On June 22, per Newsweek, Sen. John Cornyn said of the 2028 talk, "Don't tell Ted Cruz that, because Ted wants to be the next president." On August 24 on CBS Mornings, per TheWrap: "I have no announcement for you," and "We'll have this conversation another time." Two days later came "no secret," "Time will tell," and, per the Tribune, an Iowa trip this weekend with Rep. Ashley Hinson, his second of the year, a decade after he won the 2016 caucuses there. Semafor reported the same day, per Political Wire, that Vance's allies were "brushing off" the claim that the party has not coalesced. The book agrees with the allies: 1.2 cents, the same as Thomas Massie, who says he is not running.

The names above Cruz carry their own files, and none of them has moved the price either. Vance's is the July 15 Joe Rogan interview and the criticism it drew. On the Epstein files, per PBS NewsHour: "We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. Like, we just did," and of Attorney General Pam Bondi, "I think she overstated what we had and what we didn't have." In the same conversation, per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he said Epstein "clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence," called himself "one of the O.G. Epstein conspiracy theorists," and acknowledged that when he asked whether documents connected Epstein to any intelligence agency, "the answer is no." Then came the backlash from the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, which, per Axios via Political Wire on August 2, "ripped Vance for being too self-promoting, too eager to court Tucker Carlson, and too thin-skinned." The market's verdict on all of it: his contract was 41 to 42 cents through July, and it is 43 to 44 now, criticized and higher. Carlson, at 3.3 to 3.5, is the market's third-favorite person who insists he is not a candidate: a source close to him told Politico, per Reason, "He won't run against JD Vance," a week after he hosted Marjorie Taylor Greene, Massie and Joe Kent at his Maine cabin and published his principles. Trump Jr., at 3.3 to 3.6, said in May 2025, per CBS News, "maybe one day, you know — that calling is there." DeSantis, whose second term ends in January 2027, polls at 5% nationally and 6% in New Hampshire and is quoted at 5 cents. The general-election board prices what happens after Houston; this one is only about who gets there.

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What Moves The Price From Here

• Cruz in Iowa, August 29 and 30, and every trip after. A senator at 1.2 cents does not need to win anything to move; a reported staff hire, a super PAC, or a crowd that gets written up is enough to take him from one penny to three. What would hurt Vance is not Cruz running but Cruz proving the "full discussion" is real.
• November 3, 2026. Vance has said the decision comes after the midterms, and every forecaster on our panel named the president's endorsement as the single thing that would change its number. A good night for Republicans and a Trump sentence naming Vance pushes 44 toward 60; a bad night, or a sentence naming Rubio, is the only documented path to a new favorite.
• The Iowa caucuses, expected to open the 2028 calendar, and then the Houston convention. The Republican National Committee is expected, per FrontloadingHQ on July 21, to keep Iowa first, New Hampshire second; no dates are set. The contract pays only when someone accepts the nomination at Toyota Center in Houston, in the summer of 2028.

Nothing on this board settles before the Republican National Convention in Houston in 2028. Everything on it is a bet on who walks onto that stage.

Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. JD Vance photo by Emily J. Higgins, licensed Public domain; photos cropped, toned, and composited.

Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of August 26, 2026, 7:42 p.m. Eastern, and will keep moving until this market settles when the party's nominee accepts the nomination at the 2028 Republican National Convention in Houston. OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst: any model or panel figures referenced are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. This article does not advocate for or against any candidate or party. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.