Mike Pence stuck his head up this week to take a whack at Trumpism, urging Republicans to reject “protectionist tariffs” and “isolationism” while “unashamedly” recommitting to anti-abortion positions.
It’s a sign of what he’s up to behind the scenes as well.
The former vice president is laying the groundwork for a party that could move on after the election from Donald Trump’s populism and protectionism. Sometimes that means being a rare voice of public dissent, at other times it means quietly trying to recruit allies to his cause who might be more willing to join him on specific policy or political fights.
“We’re trying to plant a flag for conservatism and believe that many of our traditional conservative groups have become far more enamored with populism these days and walked away from those principles,” Marc Short, Pence’s longtime advisor, told Semafor.
The former vice president’s Wall Street Journal op-ed taking veiled shots at Trump’s policy priorities is just a hint of what Pence is thinking as he waits for the 2024 election to play out. But the big question for Pence is: Is there still a place for him in today’s GOP?
The answer isn’t even clear to his fans: Pence doesn’t fit into “the Republican party of today,” said Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. “The Republican Party of tomorrow may be a different matter.”
After incurring Donald Trump’s wrath for certifying the 2020 election, Pence’s platform of traditional conservatism failed to move GOP voters in his presidential campaign. Yet the former vice president, governor, and member of House leadership — who was key to helping expand Trump’s coalition in 2016 — remains concerned about the direction of the party, and he’s been making moves to cultivate like-minded supporters.
Pence faces a tough road back: He doesn’t have the same rabid fan base as other leaders in the party — his presidential run confirmed that. As Trump-aligned Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley put it: “If you run for president and lose, it’s hard to maintain influence.”
Pence also faces criticism from Trump allies for being “disloyal” to the former president. But he does have long standing relationships with lawmakers on the Hill and activists across the country, and is well-respected, albeit quietly at times, among a solid faction of the party.
He’s leaning into that, and trying, with the help of his group Advancing American Freedom (AAF), to be the GOP’s “conscience” of sorts, as the organization’s president Tim Chapman put it. It’s welcome news for the coterie of Republicans who, like Pence, find themselves on the outside of the party’s populist bent.
“There’s room for his voice and the voices of others, for this reason: Our party is, at this point, mostly a political coalition in search of a clear policy agenda,” said Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, a Republican who has not endorsed Trump. “At some point we’re going to have to gravitate around a clear policy agenda … And Mike Pence is very well equipped to do that.”
