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In recent months, no one has seriously doubted that former Vice President Mike Pence would move forward with his 2024 ambitions. The question was when, not whether, the Indiana Republican would kick off his national candidacy.
By all appearances, Pence’s plan was to announce his presidential campaign at an Iowa rally with voters in Des Moines on Wednesday — his 64th birthday — followed by a town hall event on CNN that evening. But as The Associated Press reported, that will mark the formal launch of a candidacy that begins today.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is filing paperwork on Monday declaring his campaign for president in 2024, setting up a challenge to his former boss, Donald Trump, just two years after their time in the White House ended with an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Pence fleeing for his life.
On paper, Pence looks like a top-tier contender. He was a member of the House Republican leadership during his 12-year tenure on Capitol Hill; his voting record put him on the far-right fringe; he was twice elected governor in a reliably red state; and he was a vice president who was largely untarnished by multiple White House scandals.
What’s more, as much of the GOP base prioritizes social issues above all other considerations, Pence has a lengthy record as a far-right culture warrior — he even hosted a radio program in which he complained about secret political messages he saw in Disney animation.
With a record like this, the Hoosier can’t lose, right? Wrong.
Pence is facing multiple headwinds, but there are two principal hurdles standing between him and his party’s presidential nomination. The first is that a significant chunk of the Republican base already knows him — and has come to hate him.
As a recent Washington Post analysis noted, “Recent polls from Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press show only a slight majority of Republicans like him, and as many as 4 in 10 dislike him. This is members of his own party. ... Because of this intraparty resistance, Pence’s overall numbers are poor — historically poor, in fact, for a major presidential candidate.”
To be sure, we know why: As Pence’s term as vice president came to an end, Donald Trump and his allies pressed him to participate in an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Pence balked; Trump put his life in danger on Jan. 6; and much of the GOP came to see the Hoosier as the villain of the sordid tale, reality notwithstanding.
How exactly does Pence intend to overcome this? I honestly haven’t the foggiest idea, but if he plans to say he honored the rule of law, he shouldn’t expect a warm response from Republican primary voters who still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 results.
But complicating matters is Pence’s platform: The former vice president has insisted in recent months that he intends to pursue his party’s most disliked ideas, including a national abortion ban and Social Security cuts.
In other words, Pence is a historically unpopular candidate pushing historically unpopular ideas. Given such circumstances, he probably ought to keep expectations low.