JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Thursday that Republicans face an “uphill climb” in next month’s midterm elections — and that the results may be a data point he reviews as he decides whether to run for president in 2028.

“Historically there’s always a bit of an uphill climb, and I think you definitely sense that,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. “I also think you can sense a sense of cautious optimism, in the sense that, you know, people feel like the numbers are sort of moving, maybe in our direction.”

He added: “Politically, there’s just a recognition that it’s always going to be hard to win a midterm when you have the White House, the Senate and the House.”

Vance spoke aboard Air Force Two shortly after it landed on a return trip from Lakeland, Florida, where he campaigned for Sen. Ashley Moody and Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor. It was his latest headlining gig at a rally meant to boost support for the party’s candidates in what is expected to be a challenging year for the GOP.

Aside from the historical trends Vance mentioned, polls have shown President Donald Trump and the war in Iran highly unpopular among voters. A related rise in gas prices has added to a cascade of affordability concerns. And Americans are growing more skeptical of artificial intelligence and the large, power-hungry data centers being built to accommodate the technology. All of those issues could factor into voters’ choices in this fall’s key races for the House, the Senate and governor.

Vance, 42, has said consistently that his focus is on his job as vice president and on helping his party through the midterms — and that any decision about running to succeed Trump in 2028 won’t come until after then.

Asked Thursday whether a poor showing for Republicans on Nov. 3 would factor into his thinking, Vance replied: “You make these decisions by collecting as much information and trying to make a wise decision. And yeah, I mean, regardless of what happens over the next 35 days, there will be new information, new things you have to make a decision over.”

Could substantial GOP losses convince him that the climate might not be favorable for him to run for president? Vance was noncommittal.

“Right now, I try not to think too much in hypotheticals,” he said. “I’m just going to try to do as well as I can and encourage people to elect the candidates that I think are good. The American people make that decision, and when they do, then yeah, I’ll have some new information to consider.”

Vance was more eager to assess a prospective rival: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cruz said in a recent interview with MS NOW that Vance does not have a lock on the 2028 nomination and spoke of wanting to “certainly be part of the discussion.” He also has framed the future of the party as a choice between being a “small-government, free-market conservative party” or a “big-government, nanny state party.”

Vance said Cruz’s efforts to engineer a clash don’t bother him.

“It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president,” Vance added. “At this moment, I’m not. I’m trying to help elect Republicans. That’s what I’m going to keep on doing.”

Cruz, who is not up for re-election to the Senate this year, has been raising money and campaigning for midterm candidates — not only in Texas but also in states like Iowa and South Carolina. Both are traditionally placed early on the GOP’s presidential caucus and primary calendar.

Cruz also is expected to campaign this month for Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska, as well as Republican Senate candidates Ken Paxton in Texas and Michael Whatley in North Carolina.

“Senator Cruz has been focused on electing Republicans up and down the ballot this November, and he will continue campaigning vigorously over the next several weeks to help make that happen,” a spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.

In the interview, Vance tackled several of the issues that have become central to the midterm elections. He acknowledged frustration over high gas prices and said it was a topic he and Donalds discussed backstage at Thursday’s rally in Florida.

Vance also reiterated a message he has been delivering on Capitol Hill and across the country. Republicans, he said, can’t pretend things are perfect, but they can highlight their successes while they accuse the past Democratic administration of leaving them a mess and arguing that the next wave of Democrats would be worse.

“I think people recognize that the message is starting to penetrate a little bit — that we are solving problems the Democrats created and the Democrats are running a lot of crazy people,” Vance said. “I do get a sense that message is penetrating. Obviously, we’re going to find out in about 35 days whether that carries the day.”

Asked whether blame targeted at the Trump administration — which has now been in office for more than a year and a half — is justified, Vance acknowledged that such frustrations may exist.

“Voters are impatient, right? They ultimately make the decision,” he said. “We have to make the argument as best as we can. And what I honestly think is that we inherited a remarkably tough situation. … But I think that our approach is to brag about the victories, talk about the great accomplishments.”

Vance also wrestled with two of the hottest-button issues this campaign season: data centers and AI.

On data centers, Vance took something of a middle-ground stance.

“I certainly think that there are local apprehensions,” he said. “I think in some cases the companies building the data centers have done a good job of ensuring the community shares the benefits and ensuring prices don’t go — power, electricity prices don’t go up. And then in some communities, obviously, you don’t see that happening, and you see more of a pushback.”

His stance is more nuanced and tonally different than Trump’s. In an August post on Truth Social, the president likened data centers to a “Golden Goose” and charged that people opposing their construction “want to end up being backwards and poor.”

On AI, Vance has been both enthusiastic and cautious, having recently raised concerns about cybersecurity and its use in war. In the interview, the vice president noted recent alarm over how fast the technology is advancing and the fear that it will bring the end of human existence, drawing comparisons to the early days of the Covid pandemic.

“Actually, I felt a little bit like I did with Covid, where it seemed like there was a significant panic. The risk is real, just like it was with Covid, but the remedy was not necessarily appropriate or tailored to the risk,” Vance said. “And specifically, when I see people who quite literally have developed models that are good at hacking into other people’s software coming and saying, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve unleashed Frankenstein into the wild; the government should help us’ — well, one of the ways the government has to help is by ensuring that people who release Frankenstein into the wild suffer some consequences for it.”

He added a moment later: “My fear with AI right now is that we respond not by forcing more responsibility on the companies that are creating the products but by creating a regulatory regime that actually shields them from liability and in the process doesn’t deal with the real risk.”