JD Vance’s 2028 ambitions were a hot topic among the justices Tuesday as the Supreme Court heard a case looking to upend campaign finance restrictions originally brought by the now-vice president when he was a Senate candidate.
“There’s no evidence that the vice president has abandoned his intention to run for federal office in 2028,” said Noel Francisco, the former solicitor general representing Republican House and Senate committees and Vance in NRSC v. FEC.
At issue was whether Vance’s current public ambiguity about his presidential ambitions three years from now rendered his original case — which sought to allow more coordination between political parties and candidates — moot. “Virtually every vice president goes on to run for the presidency, particularly young ones like Vice President Vance,” Francisco insisted. “This court doesn’t have to blind itself to the reality that’s obvious to everybody else.”
However, Roman Martinez, a prominent Supreme Court litigator tapped by the justices to defend the current law after the Trump administration declined to do so, argued that Vance must have “a concrete plan” to run to persist in the legal case seeking to lift the coordinated spending limits.
Martinez pointed to comments Vance made to NBC News just last week. “It’s something that could happen. It’s something that might not happen,” Vance said of a 2028 presidential bid.
Martinez said those comments are simply too mushy for Vance to have legal standing to continue with the case.
“If any other plaintiff in this court told you that his injury is speculative, that it’s uncertain, that it’s premature, that it might happen and it might not happen, they wouldn’t have a prayer under Article Three” of the Constitution, Martinez said. “The same rules apply to the vice president. There’s no politician exception to Article Three.”
Martinez also noted that the Trump administration’s declaration that it thinks the coordination requirements are unconstitutional further undercuts Vance’s challenge.
“No one believes President Trump is going to enforce this law against his own vice president,” Martinez said.
Still, Franciso said the case is “alive and well,” pointing to Vance’s active Senate campaign committee and statement of candidacy.
After all, Francisco noted, “at least 15 of the last 18 vice presidents have gone on to run for the presidency.”
The chatter around Vance’s 2028 hopes comes as the conservative justices seem poised to further weaken campaign finance rules, particularly around coordination between parties and candidates, which could upend how tens of millions of dollars are spent during elections.
Such a ruling from the high court would hand Republicans their biggest campaign finance victory since the landmark 2010 Citizens United case and the 2014 McCutcheon decision that wiped out aggregate individual contribution limits. And it stands to completely reshape TV advertising — predominantly for congressional races — in the middle of a bruising midterm cycle for both parties.
Francisco argued that “more free speech is always a good thing,” and the current rules that limit political parties but not super PACs violate the First Amendment. Some of the court’s six conservative justices seemed to agree.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said past campaign finance rulings have made him concerned that the court has elevated super PACs over the political parties.
“The parties are very much weakened and disadvantaged compared to the outside groups,” Kavanaugh said.
Republicans’ top congressional campaign committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — brought the case with Vance in 2022, arguing that federal law limiting coordination between candidates and political parties is unconstitutional.
Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who argued the case in favor of the limits alongside Martinez, said the current rules “do not pose any meaningful burden on party speech.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned Elias about which party could ultimately benefit from a ruling.
“If there isn’t an imbalance in who this benefits, why would the DNC be here?” Barrett asked. Elias said that ending coordination limits would create “an arms race that right now doesn’t exist.”
The liberal justices seemed hesitant to adopt the GOP’s argument. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court’s rulings on campaign finance typically “make matters worse.”
“Now you want us to tinker some more and try to raise the voice of one party,” Sotomayor said, adding that “once we take off coordinated expenditure limits, then what’s left? What’s left is nothing, no control whatsoever.”
The justices also questioned whether allowing parties and candidates to coordinate freely could lead to bribery.
“No one has identified a single case in which a donor has actually laundered a bribe to a candidate through a party’s coordinated spending, even though 28 states allow it,” Francisco said when asked about the issue.
Party committees can coordinate with candidates for between $63,600 and $127,200 in spending for House races, and $127,200 to $3,946,100 for Senate races, depending on the size of the district or state. Those funds often go to purchasing TV ads, which are cheaper when bought in concert with a campaign than entirely by outside groups.
Once party committees reach those limits, they can continue to support candidates through independent expenditure spending, which is generally most costly and also requires organizations to set up a separate “firewalled” staff that isn’t allowed to talk directly to campaigns.
If the limits on coordinated spending are overturned, party groups would dramatically accelerate their purchase of ad time. That could advantage Republicans, who generally rely less on small-donor fundraising than Democrats, though the party has already begun contingency planning for a ruling in the GOP’s favor. While individual donors can only give up to $3,500 to a campaign per election, they can send donations up to $44,300 per year to national party committees.
Both parties were quick to put out statements believing the court would allow more coordination.
“We’re grateful for the Court’s consideration and confident the Justices will rule in favor of protecting freedom of speech and association,” NRSC General Counsel Blake Murphy said in a statement.
Democrats, too, think the court is headed that direction.
“We will continue standing strong against this blatant effort by Republicans to rig our elections,” the leaders of the DNC, DCCC and DSCC said in a joint statement.
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