CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten on Thursday advised Vice President JD Vance to “watch out” for Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the race between them tightens in early polling on the 2028 GOP presidential primaries.

Support for Vance has been “dropping like a rock” among likely voters in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, with 36% planning to vote for him in 2028, per Enten, who cited a new University of New Hampshire poll.

That’s a double-digit fall from February’s edition of the poll, when a majority of likely voters (53%) indicated that they’d vote for the veep in the primary.

Rubio, meanwhile, has been “climbing up to Mount Washington” in the poll, leaping from 7% in February to 26% this month, Enten said.

“Just in six months time, Marco Rubio has absolutely climbed out of the cellar right behind the vice president,” the data guru emphasized.

He added that Vance, who is fresh off a book tour, has been making “one of the biggest pushes of his vice presidency in terms of PR” of late.

“It doesn’t seem to be working in the Granite State,” he concluded.

Vance’s 10-point lead over Rubio in the early New Hampshire polling is notably less than the leads of other sitting VPs who ran for president.

Al Gore held a 40-point lead over the closest competitor in the field in such polling ahead of the 2000 election.

“He barely won in New Hampshire, right? He barely won over Bill Bradley,” Enten reminded viewers.

George H.W. Bush, too, was up 26 points in early 1988 polling in the Granite State.

“And of course, he had to come back and win New Hampshire after losing the Iowa caucuses,” said Enten of Bush.

He then turned his attention to Vance, saying, “So this lead is historically small. You would expect a VP to be much more up in the early polls in New Hampshire, especially with a popular president within their own party. But that is not the case right now with JD Vance.”

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