Trump critics consider him complicit in the former president’s most indefensible actions, while many Trump loyalists have maligned him as a traitor, partly to blame for denying the president a second term.Ī CNN poll conducted last month found 45% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would not support Pence under any circumstance. Despite being one of the best-known Republican candidates in the crowded field, he is viewed skeptically by voters on both the left and the right. Its caucusgoers include a large portion of evangelical Christian voters, whom they see as a natural constituency for Pence, a social conservative who often talks about his faith.īut Pence faces steep challenges. Pence and his advisers see Iowa - the state that will cast the first votes of the GOP nominating calendar - as key to his pathway to the nomination. should continue to send aid to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression. Unlike Trump and DeSantis, he argues cuts to Social Security and Medicare must be on the table and has blasted those who have questioned why the U.S. Pence, in many ways, represents a throwback to a party from days past. Pence’s campaign will test the party’s appetite for a socially conservative and deeply religious candidate who has criticized the populist tide that has swept through his party under Trump. Ron DeSantis, who remains in second, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. It includes Trump, who’s leading in early polls, Florida Gov. With Pence’s entry into the race, on his 64th birthday, the GOP field is largely set. “The question most GOP voters are asking themselves about Pence’s candidacy is ‘Why?’” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for a Trump-backing super PAC. Trump offered no response to Pence’s opening speech, but his supporters shot back. Trump has declined to say what limits he supports nationally and has blamed some midterm candidates’ strong rhetoric for their losses last November. Now he treats it as an inconvenience, even blaming our election losses in 2022 on overturning Roe v. The sanctity of life has been our party’s calling for half a century - long before Donald Trump was a part of it. Pence, who supports a national ban on the procedure, said: “After leading the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn. He accused the former president of abandoning the conservative values he ran on, including on abortion. But Wednesday, as Pence made his pitch to voters for the first time as a declared candidate, he did not hold his tongue. While Pence has criticized Trump as he has worked to forge an identity of his own outside the former president’s shadow, he has generally done so obliquely, reflecting Trump’s continued popularity in the party. Pence has spent much of the past two-and-a-half-years grappling with fallout from that day as he has tried to chart a political future in a party that remains deeply loyal to Trump and is filled with many who still believe Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that Pence somehow could reject the results. “I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United Sates again,” the former vice president said. Capitol, sending Pence and his family scrambling for safety as some in the crowd chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” Trump’s statements about mass voting fraud led a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. 6 head-on, saying Trump had disqualified himself when he declared falsely that Pence had the power to keep him in office. While he spent much of his speech, delivered at a community college in a suburb of Des Moines, criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden and the direction he has taken the country, he also addressed Jan. Pence is the first vice president in modern history to challenge the president under whom he served. Now voters will be faced with the same choice.” Capitol after the president falsely insisted his vice president could overturn the election results, Trump “demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. On that perilous day, Pence said, as Trump supporters stormed the U.S. ANKENY, Iowa (AP) - Former Vice President Mike Pence opened his bid for the Republican nomination for president Wednesday with a firm denunciation of former President Donald Trump, accusing his two-time running mate of abandoning conservative principles and being guilty of dereliction of duty on Jan.
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