Former Vice President Mike Pence on Monday filed the paperwork for his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, setting up a clash with his running mate of elections past, former President Donald Trump,
CNN reports.
Pence is set to formally announce his candidacy on Wednesday ahead of a CNN presidential town hall that evening.
The former vice president’s entrance into the race sets up an unpredictable battle between the former president who helped incite an insurrection in his bid to cling to power and his once-loyal vice president who played a role in stopping that effort to thwart democracy.
Pence has publicly criticized Trump over his assertion that Pence had the authority to overturn the 2020 election results, but he has not taken aim at Trump’s character and has repeatedly said that he’s proud of their administration’s record.
Trump, in contrast, has already unleashed personal barbs at other 2024 Republican rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Pence, a 63-year-old former congressman and Indiana governor, was selected as Trump’s running mate in 2016 in part because he could help Trump shore up the GOP’s socially conservative base.
An evangelical Christian who has long opposed abortion rights, Pence frequently says he considers himself “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
He rose in the GOP’s ranks on Capitol Hill in the early 2000s, ultimately becoming the third-ranking House Republican from 2009 to 2011. He was elected governor of Indiana in 2012.
In Trump’s White House, Pence was a loyal deputy, touting the administration’s successes as the president’s. He chaired the White House’s coronavirus task force, which coordinated the administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and laid the groundwork for the distribution of vaccines shortly after Trump and Pence left office.
However, Pence broke with Trump over the former president’s actions in the wake of the 2020 election, which is now the subject of a special counsel investigation.
Trump publicly and privately sought to pressure Pence to reject key swing state results in the vice president’s ceremonial role leading Congress in counting electoral votes. On January 6, 2021, Trump was slow to stop his supporters from attacking the US Capitol while Pence was inside and some of the mob were chanting death threats against him.
