Those keen to wrest control of the GOP from MAGA conservatives and to resume the course charted by the party prior to President Donald Trump’s 2016 election have their work cut out for them.

A new poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics revealed that Vice President JD Vance presently towers over his potential 2028 GOP primary opponents — including Calgary-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is poised to run as the kind of George W. Bush-era Republican that Trump crushed in the 2016 and 2024 primaries.

‘Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves.’

When asked whom they would vote for if the election were held this month, 57% of respondents said that they would support Vance; 9% said Secretary of State Marco Rubio; 7% said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; 4% said Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; 4% said former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nimarata “Nikki” Haley; 4% said Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; 1% said Ted Cruz; and 1% said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Two percent of respondents signaled they would vote for someone else, and 10% said they were unsure.

Sources close to the Trump administration recently told Politico that Rubio has telegraphed that he would support Vance if he chooses to run.

One source close to the White House noted that the “expectation is JD as [nominee] and Rubio as VP.”

RELATED: The early social media reviews of Cruz’s 2028 POTUS trial balloon are in

DeSantis, who secured less than 2% of the votes cast in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m not thinking about anything because I think we have a president now who’s not even been in for a year. We’ve got a lot that we’ve got to accomplish.”

The Florida governor may have taken the advice that James Blair, a former DeSantis staffer who now serves as Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, recently shared via Politico: “If you’re a Republican that wants to run in 2028 right now, you need to focus on keeping Republicans in power for 2026. I think the number one thing everybody can do is focus on the team and helping their team and not focus on themselves.”

“Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves,” added Blair.

Last month, the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll found that while DeSantis didn’t place in the top five Republican presidential primary candidates for 2028, he managed the fourth-highest favorability rating.

Vance placed first with a favorability rating among likely Republican primary voters of 77%; Rubio placed second with a 58% rating; Gabbard placed third with a 57% rating; DeSantis came fourth with a 56% rating; and Ramaswamy came fifth with 46%.

Cruz and Haley, meanwhile, were much further down the list with favorability ratings of 38% and 25%, respectively.

Gabbard, polling ahead of Cruz in the Saint Anselm College poll, has not made explicit any intention to run but indicated earlier this year on “The Megyn Kelly Show” that she “will never rule out any opportunity” to serve her country.

On the prediction website Polymarket, Vance is given a 55% chance of winning the primary.

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Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy ruffled feathers among the professionally offended last week by noting that “traveling has become more uncivilized.”

Duffy cited Federal Aviation Administration data indicating a 400% increase of in-flight outbursts, including physical violence since 2019; 13,800 reported unruly passenger incidents since 2021; and a doubling last year of unruly passenger events compared with 2019.

‘Did people start kind of acting more like animals because they were treated more like animals?’

As part of the Department of Transportation’s broader effort to usher in a “Golden Age of Travel for the American people” — which dovetails with an initiative to beautify and restore key transportation infrastructure — Duffy kicked off a campaign on Wednesday aimed at jump-starting “a nationwide conversation around how we can restore courtesy and class to air travel.”

In an interview with Blaze News editor Christopher Bedford on Monday, Duffy said he’s not necessarily calling for a return to three-piece suits and top hats — just a return to basic decency.

“I think it’s a confluence of things that have come together that have caused people, as they get on airplanes, to be less civil to each other,” Duffy said.

Duffy identified long lines at airports and airlines’ efforts to cram passengers into increasingly smaller spaces as two contributing factors.

According to the advocacy group FlyersRights.org, airline seats have shrunk in recent decades while passengers have largely grown in size, such that as of 2022, “less than 50% of the public can reasonably fit in current seats.”

“The airline is trying to put, you know, a lot of people on an airplane, sell as many tickets as possible, and by doing that, they’re able to reduce the cost of travel and make it affordable for more people,” Duffy said. “But then you feel like you’re cargo.”

RELATED: ‘Disruptive’ woman causes flight with 4 congressmen to divert: ‘We live in a fascist state’

Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images

“Did people start kind of acting more like animals because they were treated more like animals? Or did airline crews have to crack down and treat people like that because of the actions they were seeing?” Bedford asked. “There was an obvious breakdown during COVID.”

Duffy suggested that the transformation of flight attendants into mask-enforcers during the pandemic helped cultivate a more confrontational environment, which — when coupled with disrespect from the airlines and from passengers alike, signaled by the latter with an apparent increase in slovenly dress — helped grease the slide into relative barbarism.

Among the alleged incidents referred by the FAA to the FBI last year were sexual assaults, attacks on fellow passengers and/or flight staff, instances of inappropriate touching of minor fliers, and incidents where passengers attempted to breach the cockpit.

‘I think we can be better.’

While physical violence and inappropriate touching are obvious examples of the behavior the Trump administration seeks to curb in air travel, Duffy noted that incivility finds various forms — such as passengers taking their shoes off and placing them on the seats in front of them, playing movies on high volume without headphones, and touching other fliers’ TV screens with their bare toes.

“I want to have a conversation with America that says, ‘Listen, let’s call our better angels. Let’s all be better when we travel together,'” Duffy told Blaze News.

The DOT secretary emphasized that it’s necessary not only to curb nasty behavior but to embrace good behavior: “Let’s dress more respectfully. Let’s be nicer to one another. Let’s say please and thank you.”

Duffy suggested, for instance, that if capable men see a woman struggling to put her bag into the overhead bin, they should man up and step in to help.

“I think we can be better — better humans, better Americans, better travelers,” the secretary said.

A change in general behavior could make traveling a whole lot less vexatious, not only daily where the TSA’s current volume is roughly 2.48 million souls, but this week — a week where the Transportation Security Administration expects to screen more than 17.8 million people from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2, with over 3 million souls on Sunday alone.

“We are projecting that the Sunday after Thanksgiving will be one of the busiest travel days in TSA history,” Adam Stahl, a senior official at the TSA, said in statement.

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A fight broke out between a Catholic priest and a woman who was trying to take a photograph with a political poster at a donation drive at a Miami-Dade church, according to police.

Father Jesus Saldaña, 72, was arrested and charged with two felonies for the Nov. 5 incident at the St. Kevin Catholic Parish involving a woman described as a senior. The church was collecting donations to help hurricane victims in Cuba.

The woman took photos of the father, and he lunged at her, which led to witnesses separating the two.

The woman was dropping off a donation when Saldaña confronted her and said she could not take a photograph there with a political poster related to anti-Cuba political ads, according to police. She then asked for her donation to be returned.

A verbal altercation ensued that allegedly turned physical.

The woman took photos of the father, and he lunged at her, which led to witnesses separating the two. Then Saldaña followed her to her car, where he damaged her vehicle and got bitten on the wrist by the victim in return.

Saldaña allegedly damaged the car’s gear selector, broke off the rearview mirror, and then grabbed the woman’s purse and dumped out its contents in order to look for her phone, according to police.

He was charged with burglary of an occupied conveyance, battery on a person 65 years or older, and criminal mischief involving property damage of $200 or less.

RELATED: ‘Pure evil’: Feds charge alleged leader of ‘unthinkably depraved,’ violent group involved in child sextortion

The woman was admitted to a hospital over cardiac issues after the incident but had no visible injuries, according to police.

Saldaña was released after paying a bond.

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While the mainstream media consistently denies or downplays the genocide of Christians in Nigeria, Judd Saul, founder and director of Equipping the Persecuted, who consistently does mission work in the country, assures us that Christians and churches are being wiped out by militant Islamic groups while the Nigerian government turns a blind eye.

On a recent episode of “Relatable” with Allie Beth Stuckey, Saul unveiled the gut-wrenching reality of what is really happening to our Christian brothers and sisters in Nigeria.

“What’s happening right now is a real-life systematic jihad against Christians perpetrated by radical Islamists from the north,” he says.

One of the Muslim groups with the most radicalized factions is the Fulani tribe, which has exploded in population in the last 30 years. This growth in tandem with the tribe’s goal to take over Nigeria has culminated in the tribe gaining political power and implementing Sharia law in many regions. However, as it expands into the nation’s southern zones, where Christianity is the dominant religion, conflict has ignited.

The Fulani, Saul says, practice the same kind of radical Islam as Isis and al-Qaeda that demands death to any who refuse to submit. This even applies to fellow Muslims who refuse to adopt their specific brand of Islam.

Some news outlets and media figures have used this fact to disprove the notion that Nigerian Christians are facing genocide. But Saul says the ratio is “five to one.”

“For every Muslim killed, it’s five Christians that are killed. And what you don’t see in Nigeria are mosques being burned and destroyed and Muslim villages completely ransacked and taken over versus the Christian villages, where you have over 10,000 churches that have been destroyed and nearly 800 Christian communities completely wiped off the map,” he tells Allie.

Even worse, “the Nigerian government is complicit in these attacks, and they’re spending lots of money and resources to try to keep the status quo because the Fulani have infiltrated the Nigerian government; they’ve infiltrated the military, the entire security apparatus in Nigeria,” Saul adds.

This plays out in horrifying ways. “The people trying to defend their villages end up getting arrested by the military and put in prison, while the perpetrators, the guys actually doing the killing, get away scot-free.” And if a terrorist does happen to get arrested, he’s “let out the next day.”

The ultimate result is that Christianity is slowly but surely being replaced by Islam. The nation, once 70% Christian, is now split down the middle between Christianity and Islam, as many believers either have been killed or have converted to avoid being slaughtered.

Perhaps most disturbing, however, is who is funding this militant Muslim takeover.

“When the Arab Spring happened under Obama, and the whole destabilization of the Middle East … you saw this rise of ISIS,” says Saul. “Well, funding, weapons, everything started pouring in from the Middle East down to Northern Africa, and that is where some of the funding is coming in.”

But it’s also coming from other foreign powers, he says. China is “illegally mining all over the middle belt in Northern Nigeria.” To avoid trouble and gain mining access to “areas where Christian villages once were,” they pay these militant tribes, who then use the money to fund their violent campaign.

But the funding trail doesn’t end there. “This is how they’re also financing their war is through kidnapping,” says Saul, “and currently, we estimate there’s over 10,000 Christians being held in terror camps, held for ransom as we speak.”

The families of the hostages, he says, “sell everything they own” in futile hopes of seeing their relatives returned safely. “This has been a continuous funding source for the local terrorists.”

This deep-pocketed Muslim crusade against Christians and others, however, “can be stopped,” says Saul.

To hear how, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Let’s face it: Republicans are staring at a wipeout in the midterm elections. The economy is battered, GOP leadership looks unfocused, and swing voters show signs of fatigue with the endless drama surrounding Trump. The trend lines point in one direction.

But another truth sits alongside it: Republican voters still want a reason to show up. The base will not match the left’s turnout intensity unless the party gives them a fight worth having. And no issue energizes the conservative electorate more than immigration. If Republicans intend to use their remaining political capital, this is where to use it.

At a minimum, Trump should return to his original 2015 promise: Pause immigration and restore sanity to a system voters believe is broken beyond recognition.

Last week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced exactly that fight.

What the PAUSE Act does

Roy’s PAUSE Act freezes all legal immigration — except temporary tourist admissions — until the federal government establishes permanent enforcement against illegal entry and against categories of immigration voters have opposed for years. The bill sets clear conditions for lifting the moratorium.

Reversing Plyler v. Doe, allowing states and localities to deny illegal aliens access to public schools.Reforming birthright citizenship so that minors receive citizenship only when at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or green card holder.Ending chain migration and the diversity visa program; limiting entries to spouses and unmarried minor children; ending extended-family preference categories.Prohibiting the entry of Sharia-law adherents, Chinese Communist Party members, known or suspected terrorists, and members of foreign terrorist organizations.Barring noncitizens from accessing means-tested federal benefits such as SNAP, SSI, TANF, Medicaid, Medicare, WIC, federal student loans, and public housing.Ending adjustment of status for H-1B visa holders and abolishing the unconstitutional optional practical training program that displaces American tech workers.

The bill accomplishes all of this in fewer than 10 pages. Original co-sponsors include Reps. Keith Self (R-Texas), Brandon Gill (R-Texas), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.).

A long-delayed agenda

Conservatives have pushed these reforms for nearly two decades. Some ideas surfaced in the Trump years through executive actions, but courts blocked several and entrenched others — especially anchor-baby citizenship and taxpayer-funded K-12 education for illegal aliens.

Other essential reforms, such as ending optional practical training, halting visas from China, or barring Sharia-law adherents, were never attempted.

RELATED: Trump can’t call it ‘mission accomplished’ yet

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The genius of Roy’s bill is simple: It creates a standing incentive for courts, presidents, and future Congresses. If judges want legal immigration to continue, they must revisit the policies that created the crisis in the first place.

Staring at political reality

If Trump focused his attention on this bill — and forced congressional Republicans to choose — he could unite conservatives heading into primary season. A transformational immigration fight would energize GOP voters at a moment when the party shows weakness across the map.

Democrats have over-performed by an average of 15 points in recent special elections. That surge alarmed Republicans enough that they pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) from consideration for U.N. ambassador for fear of losing her district, which Trump carried by 15 points. Democrats are now pouring money into Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, which Trump carried by 20. A party that cannot defend safe seats is a party in trouble.

If Republicans can’t win in red America during a bad economy, it’s not because voters demand new talking points. It’s because the party has failed to deliver on the core issues that animate its base.

RELATED: The right must choose: Fight the real war, or cosplay revolution online

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The choice ahead

Trump could offer a fresh economic vision or finally follow through on repealing Obamacare. But at a minimum, he should return to his original 2015 promise: Pause immigration and restore sanity to a system voters believe is broken beyond recognition.

The window is closing. If Republicans refuse to use the power they still possess, they will lose it — not gradually, but suddenly.

The PAUSE Act gives them a chance to reverse that trajectory. The question is whether they will take it.

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