According to a person familiar with Pence’s preparations, the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, a Republican, will declare his candidacy for president in 2024 during a rally-style gathering in Des Moines, Iowa, next Week.
Pence, who served beside former President Trump for a period of four years, will go up against his old running partner as well as other Republicans such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, is also anticipated to announce his candidacy next week.
According to recent polls, Trump is by far the front-runner, with DeSantis in a distant second. Pence, Scott, Haley, and Ramaswamy are all behind by mid-single digits.
However, the entry of candidates like Scott, Pence, and Christie into the race before and right after DeSantis’s entry into the race indicates a lack of faith in the Florida governor’s ability to defeat Trump. The first poll conducted since DeSantis’s announcement also reveals that he did not benefit from it. Scott refuted the idea that the campaign was a “two-man race” involving Trump and DeSantis during an interview with Breitbart News during his launch event in North Charleston, South Carolina. It would be more evidence that most Republicans do not think in those terms if Pence entered the race next week.
In an earlier mid-April interview in his home state of Indiana during the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) yearly meeting in Indianapolis, Pence said that he was only “weeks, and not months,” away from making a decision on 2024. That has come to pass because that interview was less than eight weeks ago.
Backstage at the NRA event, Pence told Breitbart News, “Look, I believe our nation is in a lot of danger. “My wife and I are still thinking and praying as to what our part might be, but I believe we are going to have more clarity and you will have a more clear idea in a few weeks, rather than months,” the vice president said. “When I consider the manner in which God has blessed me and my family with the opportunity to be a leader in this Congress, to become a governor of a state that is doing well, and also to be a vice president of a consequential conservative administration.”
According to a person familiar with his preparations, Pence will officially begin his campaign on Wednesday of next week in Des Moines. The source stressed that Pence chose Iowa as the location of his launch because he wants to make the first-in-the-nation state the focus of his campaign.
