Vance begins to lock down parts of MAGA coalition for 2028

PHOENIX - Vice President JD Vance hasn't formally announced that he will seek to succeed President Donald Trump, but a key piece of the grassroots wing of the MAGA coalition is beginning to line up behind him nearly three years ahead of the 2028 election. Erika Kirk at AmericaFest on Thursday.Mark Peterson for NBC News Kirk onstage Thursday.Mark Peterson for NBC News A raised hand in prayer Sunday.Mark Peterson for NBC News An eventgoer wears a top and pants with Erika and Charlie Kirk on them.Mark Peterson for NBC News AmericaFest attendees lowering their heads in prayer.Mark Peterson for NBC News An eventgoer Thursday.Mark Peterson for NBC News Patches for sale in the exhibit hall.Mark Peterson for NBC News An attendee sports a yarmulke with Trump's face.Mark Peterson for NBC News Attendees sing the national anthem.Mark Peterson for NBC News Not only did Vance win an endorsement from Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA and widow of the organization's slain co-founder, Charlie Kirk, on Thursday night, but a straw poll of attendees at its AmericaFest conference showed Vance taking 84%, followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 5% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 3%. Those results broadly reflect the sentiments AmericaFest attendees expressed in more than a dozen interviews last week at the four-day conference in Arizona, and they suggest Vance, who is also a favorite of some of the political right's wealthiest tech-sector barons , is finding early success in holding together disparate segments of Trump's base at a fractious moment for other conservative luminaries. Renee Harrison, a first-time AmericaFest participant who retired from a career arranging financing for longtime corporate customers at Microsoft, said her pick in the 2028 Republican primaries is "definitely JD." "Because he has the balls and he comes from a real background," Harrison, 64, of Star, Idaho, said of Vance, a former senator from Ohio and author of a bestselling memoir about growing up in hardscrabble Appalachia. "He says it how it is." Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, founded in 2012 to engage young activists, provided crucial support for Trump's 2024 campaign, and the organization's ranks are growing, according to Erika Kirk. It now claims more than 1 million members and more than 1,400 college campus chapters, she said in opening remarks at the conference Thursday night. But it is also attracting older voters from Trump's coalition, particularly in the wake of Charlie Kirk's Sept. 10 assassination. Wendy Leighton-Floyd, 56, said she is "probably leaning in Vance's direction" as she walked around AmericaFest with her 22-year-old daughter, Liberty Granger. "Honestly, I wish Trump could just be king forever and pass it down to the next one and then eventually Barron [Trump]. I don’t believe in having kings, but if we could, I think he’s done a lot, and I think he speaks out," said Leighton-Floyd, of Kansas City, Missouri. "I think he’s probably priming JD Vance, because I’ve noticed that he’s getting more outward-spoken about things and not holding it...

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