Affordability worries and GOP infighting hover over the early race to succeed Trump

President Donald Trump has 38 months left in office and — as his occasional pining about an unconstitutional third term attests — is loath to be a lame duck anytime soon

President Donald Trump has 38 months left in office and — as his occasional pining about an unconstitutional third term attests — is loath to be a lame duck anytime soon.

But the quacking from others has begun.

Democrats scored resounding victories in elections last week as voters agonized over high prices and a federal government shutdown that paused paychecks and disrupted food aid for low-income Americans. The results put Republicans, especially those interested in succeeding Trump in 2028, in a bind over how to respond to growing affordability concerns without overstepping a president who remains popular with their base.

“The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vice President JD Vance, whom Trump has identified as a potential heir to his MAGA movement, wrote on X the morning after the elections. “We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”

Vance has been loyally and carefully restrained where others have not.