Mike Pence would be a candidate without a constituency
Tom Joyce
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Will former Vice President Mike Pence run for president?
Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission saying that Pence intends to run for president on Monday turned out to be fake. However, Pence may pursue the Republican presidential nomination in the 2024 election cycle.
MIKE PENCE IS TRYING TO NAVIGATE HIS WAY OUT OF THE DEAD-END CALLED TRUMP
Pence has visited New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary in the country, twice since August. If Pence runs, however, it’s hard to see how he could win the nomination.
Traditionally, vice presidents are viable presidential candidates, but that has not been the case for Republicans in the 21st century. At one point in his vice presidency, Dick Cheney had a 13% approval rating; his approval rating consistently lagged behind that of President George W. Bush.
Pence, meanwhile, has a different problem. His approval rating in office didn’t lag behind President Donald Trump. Yet, there likely aren’t enough Republican primary voters willing to unite behind Pence to earn him the nomination if he pursues it.
Trump, who is running for president again, still has a solid base of supporters who think the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and want to see him return to office. Since the former president still has many fans, a candidate would have to unite the pro-Trump and anti-Trump Republican vote to beat him in a primary.
For Pence, this presents a problem.
Some Republicans disliked Trump and his administration while he was president yet continued to vote for Republicans down-ballot; this is why every incumbent Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives won reelection in 2020, including in districts where Trump lost. Those people will likely look at Pence as Trump’s former vice president and refuse to support him. They disliked Trump’s personality or disagreed with his agenda, and Pence was a major supporter of the Trump agenda during his tenure as vice president.
Pence also cannot draw many votes from the Trump loyalists. After all, many people who want Trump to serve as president again think, incorrectly, that Pence is a traitor and that he had the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, but chose to hand the election to President Joe Biden.
Pence could win some votes from anti-Trump (but not Never Trump) Republicans. He also could gather support from people who voted for Trump in 2020 but have since turned on the former president — people who voted for Trump but understand that he lost a fair and free election and were disgusted by Trump’s unfounded voter fraud claims and the actions of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
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But all this makes Pence a weaker candidate than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won reelection in Florida with nearly 60% of the vote in November; at least in his home state, DeSantis likely earned support from Never Trump Republicans and independents.
It would be nice to have a staunch social conservative like Pence in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. As for his chances of winning, however, Pence has little likelihood of uniting the Republican Party.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.