As Donald Trump tweeted through November and into December that the “rigged” 2020 election was “far from over,” Vice President Mike Pence’s top advisers were sketching out a deliberate and strategic blueprint for the post-vice presidency. It would keep the conservative stalwart front and center in the Republican consciousness over the next couple of years. It would prime the pump for a campaign for the GOP nomination for president from Pence’s planned home base and political headquarters — Indiana — when the time was right. Job one would be to stand up a political nonprofit organization, a 501(c)(4), that includes as advisers Trumpworld insiders and is adroitly constructed to promote Pence without getting him crossways with the 45th president or the legion of loyalists clamoring for the return of their king. Advancing American Freedom launched in April 2021, ahead of Pence’s first trip to South Carolina as an ex–vice president. The group’s advisory board included a cross section of Republicans, including, as planned all along, some key Trump administration veterans, such as former chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, plus all-around Trump cheerleader Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives.

As the calendar flips from 2021 to 2022, phase II of the Pence post-election plan is likely to take shape in the form of a resurgent Great America Committee, the political action committee the former vice president unveiled soon after he and Trump were sworn into office in 2017. Through this overtly political vehicle, Pence planned to raise money and campaign for Republicans up and down the ballot — gubernatorial candidates, congressional candidates, even those running for office at the state and local levels. Party efforts to recapture a narrowly divided U.S. Senate after a brief, two-year interregnum, and reclaim the House of Representatives after four years out of power, are going to be a magnet for 2024 Republicans. Even in Trump’s shadow, the jockeying will be fierce, but Pence begins with a head start: He’s already a known quantity. Early in Trump’s presidency, the president was generally uninterested in mundane party-building activities outside of playing host of his traveling rally roadshow; his vice president filled the void with gusto. Whether Trump mounts a third White House bid in 2024 or not, Pence had a plan to put himself in position to pull the trigger on a presidential campaign, and he was executing.