Problematically, Pence finds himself in the minority among Republicans when it comes to views about the election’s outcome: In March, more than 60 percent of Republicans told an SSRS/CNN poll that Biden had not legitimately won the votes to become president, in line with what most surveys have found since the 2020 contest.Īs of June 1, Pence’s favorability rating among Republicans was in the low 50s, while his unfavorables were in the low- to mid-30s. You know, it hasn’t helped Pence that Trump has continued to blame him for his 2020 defeat, even as Pence has argued that Trump was “wrong” about Pence’s ability to overturn the 2020 result. Skelley: So Pence’s difficulties largely stem from the unusual prospect of running against Trump and Pence’s reduced political standing among Republicans since he refused to aid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Thomson-DeVeaux: Why is Pence in such a weak position compared with other vice presidents who ran for the White House, except for Dan Quayle, I guess? Bush, Al Gore and Biden all led their respective primary fields five or so months into the year before the primary, and all went on to become their party’s nominee. Most other vice presidents have been more competitive at this early point, if not clearly ahead: Walter Mondale, George H.W. Ron DeSantis, who is at around 20 percent.Īmong modern vice presidents, only Dan Quayle’s failed 2000 campaign was in Pence’s territory, and Quayle ended up dropping out in September of 1999. In FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, Pence is sitting at around 5 percent, far behind Trump, who is at nearly 55 percent, and Florida Gov. We obviously have a very recent example in President Biden.īut the fact is, Pence enters the 2024 race in arguably a weaker position than any modern vice president who has sought the presidency. Of those, six won the nomination at some point and three became president. Since World War II, eight vice presidents prior to Pence have sought their party’s nomination. Geoffrey Skelley: Yeah, so traditionally, the vice presidency has been a really good pathway to becoming president, or at the very least your party’s presidential nominee. OK Geoffrey, as a former vice president, what do we make of Pence’s candidacy in the 2024 race? I spoke to FiveThirtyEight senior elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley to find out more about Pence and whether or not he actually has a shot at winning the GOP nomination. He served under former President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021, but now he faces the prospect of running against his old boss in the 2024 Republican primary. Maybe even more important, Trump’s appeal these days is based less on ideology and more on his grievances, his warnings that the “Deep State” is out to change the country, and his message of anger.Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux: Former Vice President Mike Pence just announced that he’s running for president. And while Pence is an unapologetic conservative, particularly on hot-button cultural issues, most of the Republicans running for their party’s nomination are also conservative. You may be thinking that Pence has political assets that I have ignored, including plenty of campaign experience and a conservative record that GOP primary voters will love.īut Trump has demonstrated that significant political experience doesn’t matter to many on the right. So, Pence loses both the hard-core Trump crowd and those who are critical of the former president, which limits his potential appeal to a narrow band of Republican voters. Many of them believe that he refused to follow Trump’s wishes in December and January after the 2020 election, costing Trump another four years in the White House. Of course, Pence will continue to have trouble appealing to Trump loyalists. Given that, it is difficult to believe that most evangelicals base their voting decisions on questions of personal morality. (Remember, Trump carried 80 percent of white born-again or evangelical Christians in his 2016 run for the White House, according to the national exit poll.) Count me as skeptical.Įvangelicals did not have a problem voting for a man who bragged that he could grab a woman’s private parts or who had an affair with an adult film actress. Pence seems to think that there is an evangelical “lane” that he can exploit as he seeks his party’s nomination. That may not be a problem for evangelical voters looking for a moral leader (whatever that might mean to them), but it could well limit Pence’s overall appeal in a Republican race where he starts far behind the leaders, Trump and DeSantis. To this day, Pence often sounds to me as if he is running to be the country’s pastor in chief, not its commander in chief. With his piercing eyes, intense focus, and consistently conservative views, I didn’t find him entertaining or engaging.
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