The final weeks of the intensely competitive 2022 election suggest Mike Pence's fortunes have shifted as he lays the groundwork for his own potential campaign for the White House in 2024.
Former Vice President Mike Pence gestures as he addresses the Convocation at Liberty University, Sep. 14, 2022, in Lynchburg, Va.By refusing to go along with the former president’s unconstitutional push to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Pence became a leading target of Trump’s wrath and a pariah in many Republican circles.
Last week, Pence endorsed Senate nominee Blake Masters, who has struggled to pivot from the primary to win over moderates in a state where one-third of voters are registered independents. Masters, during the primary, baselessly denied the 2020 results, recording a video in which he said he thought Trump had won. Masters claimed on his website that, “if we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.”
Last month, Pence campaigned in New Hampshire for Senate nominee Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who also spent his primary campaign telling voters the 2020 race was stolen from Trump. Short said Pence was happy to support candidates who had moved past 2020, as he has urged the party to do.