![]() If it is, he will be the Joe Biden of 2024, a candidate lacking excitement and charisma but a candidate with deep roots in his party. Even so, Pence’s strategy may turn out to be the winning strategy. Of course, Republican primary voters who reject Trump candidates in a midterm election may not reject Trump himself in a presidential primary if he decides to run. And yet, no voters, especially his voters, like to have their noses rubbed in the fact that they supported a man who, as we are learning, cared nothing for the law or the Constitution and may have taken their money under false pretenses. Trump is like a gradually deflating balloon he’s not going away with one big event but with every Tuesday he loses a little altitude. What do these trends mean for Mike Pence? His carefully calibrated attitude towards Trump could pay off handsomely in Republican primaries. But they tend to stay away from the more controversial issues around the 2020 elections. Many have plans to increase election integrity-a set of policies that Democrats see as voter suppression. Republican candidates in 2022 are enthusiastic about making elections more secure. These winning candidates continue a trend we wrote about a few weeks ago. In Virginia’s second congressional district Jen Kiggans, a state senator and Navy veteran handily defeated a candidate, Jerome Bell, who was so incensed about the 2020 election that he tweeted back in September, “Audit all 50 states. Ditto for Mike Collins, the winner of the runoff in Georgia’s 10 th district primary. ![]() Rich McCormick, the winner in Georgia’s 6 th district primary, who is a veteran with conservative views on most issues, had a conservative platform on election integrity but shied away from getting involved in the more controversial issues surrounding the 2020 election and January 6. The winners in these races were not liberal by any means. In addition to his big losses in the Governor’s race and in the Secretary of State’s race, Trump endorsed candidates lost two congressional runoffs, Jake Evans (GA-6) and Vernon Jones (GA-10.). Georgia has not been a good state for Trump this year. The June 21 primaries resulted in more wins for the wishy-washy candidates. In last week’s primaries, incumbent Nancy Mace, (who, like Pence was a big Trump supporter until she broke with him over January 6) ran a campaign that was careful to not go too hard on Trump and she won her primary against a Trump endorsed challenger. Youngkin had to cut into the more liberal northern Virginia vote in order to win the state. While it’s true that there are parts of the country where Republicans seem to be trying to outdo each other to see who can be most like Trump, wishy-washy may be just what the doctor ordered in all but these most deeply Republican places. The result? Youngkin outperformed Trump in the northern Virginia suburbs that count for such a large portion of the Virginia vote. Trump never came to the state, and on the eve of the election, he conducted a private tele-rally that was closed to the press and did not get much attention. There, Youngkin skillfully kept Trump at arm’s length. The first piece of evidence came in the fall of 2021 when Republican Glenn Youngkin won the Governor’s race in Virginia. Some say that Pence’s wishy-washy positioning vis a vis his former boss won’t work. In short, he is doing everything he can to ingratiate himself with the Republican party. In addition to campaigning for individual candidates, Pence has spoken at pro-life events, at donor retreats and at fundraisers for Republican candidates. While on the stump for Republican candidates, he emphasizes the accomplishments of the Trump/Pence Administration. Liz Cheney, Pence has not called the former President “clearly unfit for office.” Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, two incumbents who also resisted Trump’s attempts at undermining the election, Pence once more placed himself on the side of the Constitution and the law.Īnd yet, while Pence has clearly differentiated himself from Trump’s attempted coup, he has refrained from engaging in a full-throated critique of Trump. This year, by endorsing and campaigning for Georgia Gov. In upholding the Constitution, Pence got a modicum of respect from Democrats and others who had seen him merely as a lapdog to Donald Trump. And yet in the final days he broke from his president when Trump pressured him to, single handedly and without any legal basis, reject the electoral college votes from states Trump had lost. He was, as would be expected, a loyal vice president. Mike Pence seems to be using a strategy that tiptoes around his relationship with Donald Trump.
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