With President Trump’s position atop the party now secure and his acceptance by the Republican base assured, Vice President Mike Pence has evolved from his initial role reassuring conservatives about Trump into a special-missions operator dispatched to regions where the campaign needs help.
While Trump flies Air Force One around the country for raucous airplane hangar rallies and mega-fundraisers, Pence hits the hustings in two-lane road communities. Often in an armored blue touring bus with “Trump- Pence; Keep America Great” plastered on both sides, Pence focuses on intimate visits with voters and modest, though lucrative, fundraisers. Under direction from the Trump campaign, Pence is traveling mostly throughout five key battlegrounds: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Pence also is parachuting into traditionally conservative suburban and exurban enclaves. The Trump campaign hopes the vice president can help the commander in chief make up ground among disaffected Republican voters less enamored with the president’s provocative populism.
When Trump selected Pence as his running mate in 2016, the movement conservative from Indiana played the crucial role of presidential emissary to the Republican establishment.
During the 2016 campaign, that meant allaying fears among traditional Republican voters that the populist business mogul with few ties to the party or relationships in Washington might stray from bedrock GOP principles and cut centrist deals with Democratic leaders in Congress. After Trump entered the White House, that meant serving as a bridge between the president and Republicans on Capitol Hill — and raising money from a still skeptical community of well-heeled GOP donors.
Pence, 61, was elected to Congress in 2000 after losing twice previously — in 1988 and 1990. The former talk radio host quickly carved out a niche as among the more reliable conservative stalwarts in the House, opposing President George W. Bush on education reform and on legislation to expand Medicare to include coverage of prescription drugs. In 2009, Pence was elected conference chairman by his peers, making him the No. 4 ranking House Republican.
Leading up to the 2012 elections, Pence was encouraged by supporters to run for president and gave it some consideration. Mindful of his early congressional defeats, he chose a modest path to a higher office instead, running for governor of Indiana. Four years later, Trump plucked him from a tough reelection bid and put him on the Republican presidential ticket. Despite rumors of occasional friction between the two, Pence and the president have developed a close bond.
Their connection is born of constant communication, in person and on the phone, Trump’s willingness to trust Pence and delegate to him some authority, and the vice president’s unwavering loyalty. Asked in an interview with the Washington Examiner over the summer how he reconciled his instincts as a movement conservative with Trump’s unorthodox populism, Pence credited the president with forcing him to rethink his position on issues such as trade.
“Let me tell you something, I was on a learning curve with all of this myself,” he said. “When I was in Congress, I supported virtually every trade agreement that came before the Congress. One of the things that the president said to me during the [2016] campaign was that these multinational trading agreements are not in America’s interest because you lose leverage.”
