ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday by accusing his two-time running mate, former President Donald Trump, of abandoning conservatism and opposing the Constitution on Jan. 6.
“When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern like a conservative, and together we did exactly that,” Pence said. «Today, he makes no such promise.»
Pence cites abortion as a prominent example of Trump’s departure from the party’s conservative tenets.
“The sanctity of life has been the call of our party for half a century, long before Donald Trump was a part of it,” Pence planned to say. “Now he treats it like an inconvenience, even blaming the 2022 election losses on the overturning of Roe v. Wade”.
Those comments, along with a rebuke of Trump’s efforts to nullify the 2020 election, represent Pence’s most aggressive public repudiation of Trump.
A president who put himself above the Constitution, and asked his vice president to do the same, «should never be president of the United States again,» Pence said.
Pence, who certified the results of the 2020 election under threats from Trump supporters, reiterated Wednesday that he did not have the constitutional authority to stop the count and would have set the wrong precedent if he had tried.
“President Trump also required me to choose between him and the Constitution,” Pence said, leaning toward the more glaring contrast between the two men. «Now the voters will face the same choice. I chose the Constitution and I always will.»
He went into the writing of the Constitution to explain the powers of the vice presidency and how expanding them could hurt Republicans in the future.
“The former president continues to insist that he had the right to revoke the election – President Trump was wrong then and he is wrong now,” Pence said. «He had no right to annul the election and [Vice President] Kamala Harris will not have the right to overturn the election when we win it in 2024.»
Pence concluded that Trump «demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,» adding that «now the voters will face the same choice.»
More broadly, Pence argues that Trump and President Joe Biden have failed to live up to the standards of civility that he says Americans look to their leaders.
“Most Americans treat each other with kindness and respect, even when we disagree,” Pence planned to say. “It is not too much to ask our leaders to do the same. It is clear that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump share this belief, and neither of them intends to unite this nation.»
Earlier in the day, his 64th birthday, Pence, the former Indiana governor and six-term congressman, unveiled a launch video hitting Biden by name and Trump by implication.
“President Joe Biden and the radical left have weakened America at home and abroad,” Pence said in a two-and-a-half-minute American montage narrated by himself. «We can turn this country around. But different times call for different leadership.»
Turning more directly to the always spiteful Trump, Pence added: «Today, our party and our country need a leader who will appeal to, as Lincoln said, the better angels of our nature.»
In the video, titled «Best Days,» Pence argues that the country is in bad shape, but its «best days» are yet to come.
One of three candidates entering the Republican primary field this week — former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — jumped on Tuesday, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is expected to announce Wednesday: Pence believes that the nation’s first Iowa caucus is fertile. ground for his brand of traditional, faith-based conservatism.
There is no doubt that he faces an uphill battle to compete for the party’s nomination when Trump has a majority of Republican voters in most national polls and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a clear second with 22.4% in the average RealClearPolitics from recent surveys.
Trump allies welcomed Pence into the race as a possible loss of support for DeSantis.
«Mike Pence’s entry into the race caps another bad week for Ron DeSantis’ faltering campaign,» Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Make America Great Again Inc., a pro-Trump political committee, said in a statement. voters are asking about the Pence candidacy is ‘Why?’”
Pence ranks fourth, behind Trump, DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, with less than 4% on the RealClearPolitics average.
But beyond the numbers, a Pence return would require an epic change in the political dynamic within the Republican Party.
Less than three years ago, Pence went into hiding when a Trump-incited mob ransacked the Capitol. Some in the crowd, angered by his refusal to block the certification of Trump-Pence’s defeat in 2020, chanted: «Hang Mike Pence!»
It was a dramatic turnaround for a loyal supporter who had spent his years in the vice presidency nodding to Trump’s side. At times, Pence’s endorsement was crucial to Trump, particularly when they first ran together in 2016.
Back then, some conservatives, particularly evangelical Christians, were wary of Trump straying away from the Republican base. Others were horrified by his personal conduct, including the release of an «Access Hollywood» tape in which Trump bragged about the ease with which he could sexually assault women with impunity.
Pence, who tried to reduce abortion and gay rights in Congress and as governor of Indiana, he acted as a major validator for Trump.
Now, like the other Republicans in the race, he faces the daunting challenge of cutting Trump’s support and consolidating the universe of Republican voters who dislike Trump or are simply open to another candidate.
And while Pence has near-universal name recognition among voters, an asset for most candidates, his low poll numbers suggest his challenge is complicated by the fact that the electorate’s opinion of him has already been formed. .
“Mike Pence is a true conservative and a great public servant,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who backs DeSantis. «He just doesn’t have the support among Republicans that he needs to be competitive.»
Pence campaign officials are well aware that they have to reframe the public narrative about him. They hope they can recast him not as Trump’s vice president or the man who stood between the mob and the Constitution, but as the conservative leader he was in Congress and in Indiana.
Pence, a supporter of President George W. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has stood firm in his support for US aid to Ukraine as Trump and DeSantis have questioned the wisdom of that mission.
He has also distinguished himself from the leading candidates by calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, a policy position that is popular with economic conservatives but anathema to more populist Republicans.
He reiterated that distinction in comments Wednesday, chiding fellow Republican candidates for their lack of attention to rising debt.
As a member of the House, Pence took on Bush as the leader of a rebel group that opposed the enactment of a Medicare prescription drug program. He was also one of the main budget supporters of the dead-on-arrival conservative factions that would have cut entitlement programs.
On abortion, an issue that has fractured the Republican Party since the Supreme Court struck down federal protection for the procedure last year, Pence has called for a nationwide ban. Trump, who named three of the justices who voted by majority, stopped short of that. DeSantis, who recently signed a six-week ban into law in Florida, has avoided the question of whether he would sign a measure banning abortion nationwide.
Pence’s Republican platform — strong national defense, spending cuts and conservative social policy — has allowed allies to see a glimmer of hope in Iowa, which is why he is launching his campaign there.
“We view this race as wide open, and Iowa will really cement itself as the pivotal player,” a person familiar with Pence’s plans said last week. «It’s a place that values Mike Pence principles, traditional conservative principles, deeply held faith and uncommon character.»