Former Vice President Mike Pence at an event in Washington. The former Trump partner wants to run for the highest office in the United States in 2024. © Alex Brandon/AP
No one has such a divided relationship with Donald Trump as Mike Pence: The ex-vice president went from being a loyal second to the target of a mob – and now a challenger to the old boss.
Washington - Mike Pence on his Harley Davidson, Mike Pence in jeans and a leather vest, Mike Pence next to straw bales, Mike Pence in the back of a pickup truck. The otherwise rather buttoned-up Republican has been touring the state of Iowa for days and is the popular campaigner.
The Republican wants to go to the White House. On Monday, Pence submitted the necessary documents to the electoral commission. This Wednesday, on his 64th birthday, the official announcement of his presidential bid is to follow - also in Iowa, where the Republican primaries traditionally start. Pence's entry into the campaign stands out in several ways.
Competitor: Donald Trump
The Republican wants to run against Democratic President Joe Biden - but above all against his former boss, ex-President Donald Trump, who is also running for a second term in the 2024 election. The fact that a former vice president challenges his ex-boss in the election campaign is a remarkable event in itself. In the case of Pence and Trump, this is even more true.
No one has such a divided relationship with the former president as Pence. For four years, he stood loyally at Trump's side as vice president, always over-loyal, almost submissive. No public statement from Pence without praise of the boss. Pence stoically endured all the scandals of the then president, even those that brought Pence to the moral limit as an evangelical Christian. This ended only at that moment, at the very end of the term, when Trump openly incited his supporters against Pence, when the president's mob shouted "Hang Mike Pence" and the vice president had to fear for his life.
Storming the Capitol - and democracy
It was January 6, 2021, the day on which Congress under Pence's chairmanship was to formally confirm Biden's election victory - and the day that degenerated into an unprecedented attack on US democracy. At the time, Trump saw his deputy as a last resort in his unprecedented campaign against the election results and claimed that Pence, in his role as vice president, could simply dismiss election results from individual states – which experts dismissed as illegitimate and Pence also rigorously rejected.
While Trump's supporters stormed the congressional seat at the time, the then-president tweeted that Pence "did not have the courage to do what should be done." The mob then shouted "Hang Mike Pence". Trump's deputy had to hide with security guards in a garage under the Capitol complex, while outside the building a rope dangled from a gallows.
"It didn't end well," Pence said in an interview many months later about his "close working relationship" with Trump. This is a subtle expression for an incumbent president to hand over his vice president to a violent mob in front of the world. Pence later called Trump's behavior dangerous and wrong. History will hold Trump accountable for this, he warned. And yes, he was "mad" at Trump. That sounds somewhat restrained. Pence's settling movements came across in moderate tonality.
The Trump Dilemma
The Republican tries in the almost impossible balancing act to go as far as possible to Trump without alienating his supporters. He needs to tout the work of the joint administration to polish his own record, while at the same time explaining to people why he thinks Trump is the wrong man in the White House. Of all the Republican presidential contenders who find themselves in this dilemma, Pence has it the hardest - because of his charged shared history with Trump.
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On many substantive issues, Pence represents similarly hard-hitting right-wing positions as Trump. "I was Tea Party before that was cool," Pence said of himself in 2011, referring to the arch-conservative Tea Party movement within his party. During the Trump years, some liberal Democrats considered Pence to be the more politically "dangerous" of the two - because he represents ultra-conservative positions without sharing Trump's penchant for chaos and scandal.
On a human level, the two couldn't be more different. There is Pence, the good Christian, the strict evangelical, for whom it is already a border crossing to have a meal alone with a woman other than his wife. He only attends events where alcohol is served when he has his wife by his side. On the other hand, there is Trump, who has boasted in the past that a celebrity can touch women anywhere, including their genitals. Who was held responsible in court for a sexual assault and has to answer in a lawsuit for dubious hush money payments to a star.
Christian, conservative, republican - "in order"
Trump did not bring Pence to his side by chance. For Trump, the vice president covered the important voter group of evangelicals, provided his scandal-ridden boss outwardly with a veneer of solidity and morality, at least by conservative standards. Pence regularly says of himself that he is "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican - in order." He describes his Christian faith and his marriage to his wife Karen as the most important influences in his life - presumably also in that order. The 64-year-old talks a lot about religion. His latest book is called "So help me God".
With devout Christians in the country, Pence could well score points. He is also widely known for his time as vice president. But it's not very popular. For some Republicans, the man with the image of the good public servant is too stiff, too boring, too little charismatic. Some die-hard Trump fans, on the other hand, see him as a "traitor." In polls, Pence is currently ahead of former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and others. But far behind Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis - and completely behind Trump. Dpa