By JILL COLVIN and THOMAS BEAUMONT (Associated Press)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence promised “the best days of the greatest nation on earth are yet to come” in a video launched Wednesday formally launching his marketing campaign for the Republican nomination for president.
“Different times call for different leadership,” Pence, who served 4 years alongside then-President Donald Trump, says within the video, launched by way of Fox News and Twitter hours forward of a kickoff occasion 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 might be “easy to stay on the sidelines,” he provides, ”that’s not how I used to be raised. That’s why right now, earlier than God and my household, I’m saying I’m working for president of the United States.”
With Pence’s entry into the race, the GOP subject is essentially set. It contains Trump, who’s main in early polls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who stays in second, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who additionally was launching his marketing campaign Wednesday.
Pence is staking his presidential hopes on Iowa as he launches a marketing campaign that can make him the primary vp in fashionable historical past to tackle his former working mate.
Pence’s marketing campaign will even take a look at the occasion’s urge for food for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply non secular candidate who has denounced the populist tide that has swept by his occasion below Trump. And it’ll present whether or not Pence nonetheless has a political future after Jan. 6, 2021, when a big portion of GOP voters nonetheless imagine Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that Pence had the ability to reject the outcomes of the election, received by Democrat Joe Biden.
Pence and his advisers see Iowa — the state that can forged the primary votes of the GOP nominating calendar — as key to his potential pathway to the nomination. Its caucus-goers embrace a big portion of evangelical Christian voters, whom they see as a pure constituency for Pence, a social conservative who helps a nationwide ban on abortion and sometimes talks about his religion. They additionally suppose Pence, who represented Indiana in Congress and as governor, is an effective persona match with the Midwestern state.
“We believe the path to victory runs through Iowa and all of its 99 counties,” mentioned Scott Reed, co-chair of an excellent PAC that launched final month to assist Pence’s candidacy.
Iowa has usually been seen as a launching pad for presidential candidates, delivering momentum, cash and a focus to hopefuls who win or defy expectations. But current previous winners together with Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have didn’t finally win the nomination.
And Pence faces steep challenges. He enters the race as among the many best-known Republican candidates within the crowded GOP subject. But Pence — seen by Trump critics as complicit together with his most indefensible actions and maligned by Trump loyalists as a traitor — can also be saddled with excessive unfavorable rankings.
A CNN ballot carried out final month discovered 45% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents mentioned they’d not assist Pence below any circumstance. Only 16% mentioned the identical about Trump.
Pence’s favorability has additionally slipped in Iowa, in accordance with The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.
Shortly after leaving workplace, in June 2021, 86% of Iowa Republicans mentioned they’d a good view of Pence. But the Register’s March Iowa Poll confirmed that determine had dropped to 66%. The ballot additionally discovered Pence with increased unfavorable rankings than all the different candidates it requested about, together with Trump and DeSantis, with 26% of Republicans polled saying they’ve a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable view of him.
And simply 58% of Iowa evangelicals mentioned they’d favorable emotions towards Pence — a very disappointing quantity, given his marketing campaign’s technique.
But Pence, who has already visited Iowa greater than a dozen occasions since leaving workplace, has additionally acquired a heat welcome from voters throughout his journeys. During a “Roast and Ride” occasion over the weekend that drew a protracted listing of 2024 candidates, Pence stood out as the one candidate to really mount a Harley and take part within the occasion’s annual bike journey. When he arrived at a barbecue on the state fairgrounds, he moved simply from desk to desk, warmly greeting and chatting with attendees.
But there stays lingering skepticism of Pence amongst many Republican voters who adhere to the baseless however persistent conspiracy idea that the 2020 election was stolen. Many who cling to the falsehood imagine Pence was complicit within the plot to disclaim Trump a second time period as a result of he refused Trump’s strain marketing campaign to reject the Electoral College vote when he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters violently stormed the constructing, with some chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence had no such authority in his ceremonial position.
Pence advisers say they acknowledge the problem and intend to elucidate to voters straight that Pence was adhering to his constitutional obligation and by no means had the ability to affect the vote.
“I think it’s something you have to walk straight through,” mentioned his longtime adviser Marc Short.
Beyond Jan. 6, his workforce sees their major aim as reintroducing Pence to a rustic that largely is aware of him as Trump’s second-in-command. They wish to remind voters of his time in congressional management and as governor and are planning a marketing campaign heavy with city halls, home events and visits to native diners and Pizza Ranch eating places —- extra intimate settings that can assist voters get to know him personally.
“People have seen Mike Pence the vice president. I think what people are going to see is Mike Pence the person,” mentioned Todd Hudson, the speaker of the House in Indiana and a longtime Pence pal who has signed on to assist with outreach to state legislators. “I’m super excited for people to get to know the Mike Pence that I know, who’s funny, who’s just a wonderful person… the more relaxed Mike Pence.”
Reed believes there’s a robust want within the occasion for a candidate like Pence who espouses Reagan-style conservatism, together with conventional social values, hawkish international coverage and small authorities economics.
“We think this nomination fight is going to be an epic battle for the heart and soul of the conservative, traditional wing of the Republican Party. And Pence is going to campaign as a classic conservative. His credentials are unmatched,” he mentioned.
Unlike Trump and DeSantis, Pence has argued that cuts to Social Security and Medicare have to be on the desk and has blasted those that have questioned why the U.S. ought to proceed to ship assist to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.
“We are not going to try to out-Trump Pence. Everybody else is,” Reed mentioned. “Pence is the only candidate running not to be Trump’s VP.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”