Former Vice President Mike Pence will make it official Wednesday and throw his hat into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, multiple reports said Friday.
The Des Moines Register cited “a source close to Pence who was not authorized to speak publicly about his plans,” while The Associated Press cited “two people familiar with his plans” who also had not been given permission to speak to the media about Pence’s intentions.
Pence will hold a Wednesday rally in Des Moines, the state capital of Iowa, which will likely be the first Republican primary state of the 2024 election cycle when it holds its caucuses, most likely sometime in mid-January.
Wednesday will also be the former vice president’s 64th birthday.
Calling for a return to civility in American politics, Pence will join a growing crowd of Republican candidates seeking the 2024 nomination.
The list of contenders already includes Pence’s former boss, Donald Trump; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley; conservative media personality Larry Elder; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; and anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, among others.
In addition to those, Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to announce his candidacy Tuesday night, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will throw his hat into the ring on Wednesday, the AP reported.
Pence, an evangelical Christian, is expected to do well in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Unlike the current favorite, Trump, Pence supports a national ban on the murder of the pre-born, a position that will help him among the evangelicals in Iowa who make up what the AP called “a substantial portion of the state’s Republican electorate.”
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Pence has also differentiated himself from his former boss in his belief that Social Security, Medicare and other so-called entitlement programs will have to be cut to balance the federal budget.
Trump has argued that Republican shouldn’t cut either program, a policy Pence has described as “identical to Joe Biden’s.”
But the biggest difference between the two candidates may have more to do with style than policy. Pence’s campaign will emphasize a return to civility in governance.
“I believe that democracy depends on heavy doses of civility and I think we ought to be looking for leadership that will restore a threshold of civility in public life, that will bring respect back to the dialogue,” Pence said during a May 24 appearance.
“Let’s fight and let’s argue over the direction of the country but let’s do it like Americans, with respect for one another,” he said, according to the Register.
Pence has recently cited an essay he wrote in 1991 after two unsuccessful congressional campaigns, titled “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner,” in which he essentially apologized for campaigning in a less than civil fashion during those early outings.
“Negative campaigning, I now know, is wrong,” he wrote in that essay.
How that philosophy will play out in a campaign against the consistently pugilistic Trump remains to be seen.
“For four years, we had a close working relationship,” Pence wrote in his book, “So Help Me God,” of the former president. “It did not end well.”
