Former Vice President Mike Pence promised “the best days of the greatest nation on earth are yet to come" in a video released Wednesday formally launching his campaign for the Republican nomination for president.
“Different times call for different leadership,” Pence, who served four years alongside then-President Donald Trump, says in the video, released hours ahead of a kickoff event in Des Moines.
“Today, our party and our country need a leader that’ll appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature."
While it would be “easy to stay on the sidelines,” he adds, ”that’s not how I was raised. That’s why today, before God and my family, I’m announcing I'm running for president of the United States.”
With Pence's entry into the race on his 64th birthday, the GOP field is largely set. It includes Trump, who's leading in early polls, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who remains in second, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who also launched his campaign Wednesday.
Pence is staking his presidential hopes on Iowa as he seeks to become the first vice president in modern history to take on his former running mate.
His campaign will also test the party's appetite for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply religious candidate who has denounced the populist tide that has swept through his party under Trump. And it will show whether Pence still has a political future after Jan. 6, 2021, when a large portion of GOP voters still believe Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that Pence had the power to reject the results of the election, won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Pence and his advisers see Iowa — the state that will cast the first votes of the GOP nominating calendar — as key to his potential pathway to the nomination.
Its caucusgoers include a large portion of evangelical Christian voters, whom they see as a natural constituency for Pence, a social conservative who supports a national ban on abortion and often talks about his faith.
They also think Pence, who represented Indiana in Congress and as governor, is a good personality fit with the Midwestern state.
But Pence also faces steep challenges. Despite being one of the best-known Republican candidates in the crowded field, he is also saddled with high unfavorability ratings.
Trump critics consider him complicit in the former president's most indefensible actions, while Trump loyalists have maligned him as a traitor.
A CNN poll conducted last month found 45% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would not support Pence under any circumstance. Only 16% said the same about Trump.
But Pence, who has visited Iowa more than a dozen times since leaving office, has been warmly welcomed by voters during his trips. During a Roast and Ride event over the weekend that drew a long list of 2024 candidates, Pence stood out as the only contender to actually mount a Harley and participate in the event’s annual motorcycle ride.
When he arrived at a barbecue at the state fairgrounds, he moved easily from table to table, greeting and chatting with attendees.
But there remains lingering scepticism among many Republican voters who still believe Pence could have stopped Biden from becoming president. Trump's lies about mass voting fraud and Pence lacking the “courage” to do the right thing led a mob of his supporters to violently storm the Capitol, with some chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”
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