2023-06-07 07:00:00
Former Vice President Mike Pence during a campaign event (REUTERS / Eduardo Munoz / file)
Former Vice President Mike Pence vowed that “the best days of the greatest nation on Earth are yet to come” in a video released Wednesday formally launching his campaign for the Republican nomination for president.
“Different times call for different leadership,” Pence, who served four years alongside then-President Donald Trump, says in the video, broadcast on Fox News and Twitter hours before a launch event in Des Moines. “Today our party and our country need a leader who will appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature.”
Although it would be “easy to be left out,” he adds, “this is not how I was raised. That is why today, before God and my family, I announce that I am running for President of the United States.”
I believe in the American people, and I have faith God is not done with America yet. Together, we can bring this Country back, and the best days for the Greatest Nation on Earth are yet to come! ???????? #Pence2024 pic.twitter.com/A8EkqgCDAm
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) June 7, 2023
With Pence’s entry into the race, the GOP field is largely set. It includes Trump, who leads in early polls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who remains in second place, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who was also launching his campaign on Wednesday.
Pence is staking his presidential hopes in Iowa by launching a campaign that will make him the first vice president in modern history to take on his former running mate.
Pence’s campaign will also test the party’s appetite for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply religious candidate who has denounced the populist tide that has swept his party under Trump.
Pence and his advisers see Iowa – the state that will cast the first votes on the GOP nominating schedule – as key to their potential path to the nomination. Among his constituencies are a large proportion of evangelical Christians, whom they see as a natural constituency for Pence, a social conservative who supports a national ban on abortion and speaks often of his faith. They also believe that Pence, who represented Indiana in Congress and as governor, is a good fit for the Midwestern state’s personality.
“We believe that the path to victory lies through Iowa and its 99 counties,” said Scott Reed, co-chair of a “super PAC” committee that was launched last month to support Pence’s candidacy.
Iowa is often considered a launching pad for presidential candidates, providing momentum, money, and attention to hopefuls who win or defy expectations. But recent winners there, such as Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, have ultimately failed to win the nomination.
The then Vice President Mike Pence with President Donald Trump on election day 2020 (REUTERS / Carlos Barria / file)
Pence faces great challenges. He enters the race as one of the best-known Republican candidates in the crowded field of the Republican Party. But Pence – seen by Trump’s critics as complicit in his most indefensible actions and maligned by Trump loyalists as a traitor – also carries high rejection ratings.
A CNN poll conducted last month found that 45% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would not support Pence under any circumstances. Only 16% said the same regarding Trump.
Pence’s approval has also fallen in Iowa, according to The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.
Shortly following leaving office, in June 2021, 86% of Iowa Republicans said they viewed Pence favorably. But the Register’s March poll showed that figure had fallen to 66%. The poll also found Pence ranked higher unfavorably than all other candidates asked regarding, including Trump and DeSantis, with 26% of Republicans polled saying they have a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable opinion of him.
And just 58% of Iowa evangelicals said they felt favorably toward Pence — a particularly disappointing number, given his campaign strategy.
His team sees their main goal as reintroducing Pence to a country that largely knows him as Trump’s second-in-command. They want to remind voters of his leadership in Congress and as Governor, and are planning a campaign packed with visits to town halls, house parties, and visits to local diners and Pizza Ranch restaurants, more intimate settings that will help voters get to know him personally. .
“People have seen Mike Pence as vice president. I think what people are going to see is Mike Pence as a person,” said Todd Hudson, speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives and a longtime friend of Pence, who has signed on to help reach state legislators. . “I’m super excited for people to get to know the Mike Pence that I know, that he’s funny, that he’s just a wonderful person … the most laid-back Mike Pence.”
Mike Pence, accompanied by his wife Karen Pence, and US Senator Joni Ernst attend the “Roast and Ride” event hosted by Senator Ernst in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, on June 3, 2023. (REUTERS/Dave Kaup )
Reed believes there is a strong desire in the party for a candidate like Pence, who champions Reagan-style conservatism, including traditional social values, hawkish foreign policy and small-government economics.
“We believe this nomination fight is going to be an epic battle for the heart and soul of the conservative and traditional wing of the Republican Party. And Pence is going to campaign as a classic conservative. His credentials are unmatched,” Hudson said.
Unlike Trump and DeSantis, Pence has argued that cuts to Social Security and Medicare should be on the table and has lashed out at those who have questioned why the United States should continue sending aid to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.
(With information from AP)
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