Mike Pence is officially entering the increasingly crowded 2024 Republican primary where he is widely considered to be a long-shot thanks to his connection to Donald Trump. For MAGA voters, Pence is seen as a traitor for not overturning the 2020 election, which led to rioters threatening to hang Pence during the January 6 attacks. To mainstream Republicans, well, again Pence worked for Trump. However, you’d barely know it based on the official campaign biography for Pence’s 2024 run.
According to Raw Story, Pence only uses two sentences to mention his time as Trump’s vice president before “essentially rushing through the years 2017-2021.” Instead, Pence leans more heavily into his role as the governor of Indiana because why should everyone be so concerned with his actual time in the White House? It’s not like Pence is trying to get back there– oh, right.
The bio refers to him as “Vice President Pence” throughout, for a total of 17 times – almost as many times as it mentions Indiana, where he served as governor, a job which gets two meaty paragraphs touting his accomplishments. Trump’s name appears three times – exactly as many references as the word “Hoosiers” – but one of those refers more to the administration, and Pence’s service there, rather than the twice-impeached individual.
Of course, Pence is going to need to do more than just pretend he wasn’t the Vice President of the United States for four years to make a dent in the 2024 race. Despite a growing mountain of legal trouble, Trump is still the front-runner, and should he somehow be taken out of the race, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is close behind the former president in the polls.
Although, DeSantis has been increasingly prone to meltdowns, so this could be an interesting primary.
(Via Raw Story)