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By Rob Crilly, Washington Examiner
The coronavirus pandemic has catapulted Vice President Mike Pence into a highly visible role, leading the White House response, coordinating with governors, and sending him crisscrossing the country on a mission to encourage states to reopen.
The result is a powerful springboard for a Republican with half an eye on the race for the 2024 nomination, according to allies and administration officials.
“Pence is a natural with the governors and he, more than anyone else in the administration, has been traveling nonstop collecting chits with every GOP governor, mayor, and state leader. Hugely helpful in the inevitable race for key endorsements in 2024,” said a figure close to the Pence team.
“If anyone needs anything from the White House, if you're an elected official, your first call is to Pence.”
Emerging from the president’s shadow is a recurring problem for vice presidents through the ages. But heading President Trump’s coronavirus task force put Pence in the White House briefing room at crucial moments, while other putative contenders such as Nikki Haley or Ted Cruz were forced from view.
In recent weeks, he has journeyed to battleground states to spread White House guidelines on reopening, meeting key members of the Trump coalition — including church leaders and farmers in Iowa last week.
For his part, the vice president has said politics are not a factor in his travel itinerary. Marc Short, his chief of staff, told the Washington Examiner that 2024 remained a long way off.
“Anyone who is not focused on this November is misplacing their focus,” he said.
White House watchers, however, detected a surge in activity even before the crisis: In February, a slew of profiles declared the 2024 race underway as Pence hit the road; Vanity Fair profiled his wife, Karen, suggesting that a new hairstyle and change in wardrobe (more pantsuits, fewer business casual outfits) were part of the plan.
The challenge for Pence, according to his biographer Tom LoBianco, is wooing the Trump faithful. He said: “Can he cultivate the Trump base? Can he win them to his side? And can he overcome his own stiffness on the trail and in person?”
The pre-coronavirus trips seemed designed to address those questions. The vice president frequently dropped into diners and coffee shops for an order of grip-and-grin retail politics.
In Pennsylvania, in February, he stopped at the Lyndon City Line Diner outside Lancaster on his way to a Women for Trump rally. After ordering a cheeseburger, he worked the booths, shaking hands and posing for selfies.
“Keep that,” he said after signing a 2020 Trump campaign hat. “That's a Donald Trump White House pen.” The result was the sort of whoops usually expected if the president himself had arrived, rather than a man famed for a more austere personality.
That template, minus the drop-ins, remains in place, LoBianco said.
“Before the coronavirus hitting swing states and critical political constituencies, like faith leaders, where he’s the go-to guy. Through coronavirus, it’s the same thing,” he said.
“He’s still going to the same states, still talking to the same groups that he’s the liaison to and feels comfortable with.”
Last month, he was in Wisconsin, another swing state where he saw ventilators being made, and Minnesota, which the Trump campaign believes it can snatch in November. More recently, he visited a church in Iowa, where houses of worship are beginning to resume public services — “This is the first time I’ve been back in church for some time,” he said — and his home state of Indiana.
Pence has remained in Washington for the past week after his press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus. But insiders expect him to be back on the road next week, delivering the measured assurances and quiet data-driven speeches that contrast with the president’s brand of crisis communications.
For all their differences, however, the party of Trump would likely unite behind whoever the 2024 candidate turns out to be, said Sam Nunberg, a senior adviser to the 2016 campaign, who said Pence had shown himself to be a vital ally of the president.
“Then Republican nominee Donald Trump’s choice of conservative stalwart and leading free market governor Mike Pence was one of the smartest decisions of the 2016 cycle," Nunberg said. "It was also the momentum builder for unifying the party, especially because Chris Christie, a failed governor and someone conservatives viewed suspiciously, was heavily lobbying [with the help of] Corey Lewandowski for the vice president spot.”
A lot can happen before then. Trump’s reelection odds have narrowed in recent weeks as the coronavirus death toll passed 80,000. And then there is one more question for Pence.
“The only uncertainty would be,” as a senior administration official put it, “does he want to do it?”
Read more at Washington Examiner
The coronavirus pandemic has catapulted Vice President Mike Pence into a highly visible role, leading the White House response, coordinating with governors, and sending him crisscrossing the country on a mission to encourage states to reopen.
The result is a powerful springboard for a Republican with half an eye on the race for the 2024 nomination, according to allies and administration officials.
“Pence is a natural with the governors and he, more than anyone else in the administration, has been traveling nonstop collecting chits with every GOP governor, mayor, and state leader. Hugely helpful in the inevitable race for key endorsements in 2024,” said a figure close to the Pence team.
“If anyone needs anything from the White House, if you're an elected official, your first call is to Pence.”
Emerging from the president’s shadow is a recurring problem for vice presidents through the ages. But heading President Trump’s coronavirus task force put Pence in the White House briefing room at crucial moments, while other putative contenders such as Nikki Haley or Ted Cruz were forced from view.
In recent weeks, he has journeyed to battleground states to spread White House guidelines on reopening, meeting key members of the Trump coalition — including church leaders and farmers in Iowa last week.
For his part, the vice president has said politics are not a factor in his travel itinerary. Marc Short, his chief of staff, told the Washington Examiner that 2024 remained a long way off.
“Anyone who is not focused on this November is misplacing their focus,” he said.
White House watchers, however, detected a surge in activity even before the crisis: In February, a slew of profiles declared the 2024 race underway as Pence hit the road; Vanity Fair profiled his wife, Karen, suggesting that a new hairstyle and change in wardrobe (more pantsuits, fewer business casual outfits) were part of the plan.
The challenge for Pence, according to his biographer Tom LoBianco, is wooing the Trump faithful. He said: “Can he cultivate the Trump base? Can he win them to his side? And can he overcome his own stiffness on the trail and in person?”
The pre-coronavirus trips seemed designed to address those questions. The vice president frequently dropped into diners and coffee shops for an order of grip-and-grin retail politics.
In Pennsylvania, in February, he stopped at the Lyndon City Line Diner outside Lancaster on his way to a Women for Trump rally. After ordering a cheeseburger, he worked the booths, shaking hands and posing for selfies.
“Keep that,” he said after signing a 2020 Trump campaign hat. “That's a Donald Trump White House pen.” The result was the sort of whoops usually expected if the president himself had arrived, rather than a man famed for a more austere personality.
That template, minus the drop-ins, remains in place, LoBianco said.
“Before the coronavirus hitting swing states and critical political constituencies, like faith leaders, where he’s the go-to guy. Through coronavirus, it’s the same thing,” he said.
“He’s still going to the same states, still talking to the same groups that he’s the liaison to and feels comfortable with.”
Last month, he was in Wisconsin, another swing state where he saw ventilators being made, and Minnesota, which the Trump campaign believes it can snatch in November. More recently, he visited a church in Iowa, where houses of worship are beginning to resume public services — “This is the first time I’ve been back in church for some time,” he said — and his home state of Indiana.
Pence has remained in Washington for the past week after his press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus. But insiders expect him to be back on the road next week, delivering the measured assurances and quiet data-driven speeches that contrast with the president’s brand of crisis communications.
For all their differences, however, the party of Trump would likely unite behind whoever the 2024 candidate turns out to be, said Sam Nunberg, a senior adviser to the 2016 campaign, who said Pence had shown himself to be a vital ally of the president.
“Then Republican nominee Donald Trump’s choice of conservative stalwart and leading free market governor Mike Pence was one of the smartest decisions of the 2016 cycle," Nunberg said. "It was also the momentum builder for unifying the party, especially because Chris Christie, a failed governor and someone conservatives viewed suspiciously, was heavily lobbying [with the help of] Corey Lewandowski for the vice president spot.”
A lot can happen before then. Trump’s reelection odds have narrowed in recent weeks as the coronavirus death toll passed 80,000. And then there is one more question for Pence.
“The only uncertainty would be,” as a senior administration official put it, “does he want to do it?”
Read more at Washington Examiner
