Prominent conservative lawmakers and activists were eager to embrace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s running mate on Friday, claiming the Indiana governor could be the key to uniting Republicans between now and the November election.
“Gov. Mike Pence provides the opportunity to give GOP voters still undecided about Donald Trump a reason to unite and to vote for a more principled ticket,” Jenny Beth Martin, chairwoman of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, said in a statement shortly after Trump announced his vice presidential pick on Twitter.
“We really feel like it’s a very solid pick from an evangelical standpoint, from a conservative standpoint and from a personal standpoint,” Tim Head, executive director of the Georgia-based Faith and Freedom Coalition, told the Washington Examiner following leaks of Trump’s decision on Thursday afternoon.
“He has almost a 15-year history of rock-solid credentials in terms of not on faith in the public square, but also in conservative legislation and governing,” Head said, adding that Pence makes it “harder and harder for anybody [including conservative Republicans] to sustain any criticism of Mr. Trump or the Trump campaign.”
National Rifle Association board member Ken Blackwell called Pence a “home run choice” and said Trump gets “an A-plus for his first presidential decision.”
A spokeswoman for the Young America’s Foundation, a leading organization for conservative youth, described Pence as “a step in the right direction.”
“Our country desperately needs leaders committed to promoting conservative principles,” said Emily Jashinsky, noting that Pence fits comfortably into that category.
American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp said a Trump-Pence ticket is “welcome and exciting news to conservative activists across the country.”
“Mike Pence is someone they know, they like and they respect,” Schlapp said. “He is a social conservative, he is a free market advocate, he is strong on national defense, he has sterling character and he hails from a state that is an important part of the coalition that Donald Trump has to put together to win.”
Schlapp’s sentiment was shared by Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance, who said Pence will be “a unifying factor” for the GOP and a vice president who could be trusted to advance the conservative fight to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding.
On Capitol Hill, Congressman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, lauded Pence “as one of the strongest and most ardent proponents of constitutional conservatism in public office.”
“I know that he will continue to fight for limited government, free markets, and traditional values like life, marriage and work. He’s an excellent choice and a good messenger for the ticket, because he’s a conservative and he’s not mad about it,” Jordan said in a statement to the Examiner.
In addition to serving together before Pence left Congress to run for governor, Jordan once held the Indiana conservative’s previous position as chairman of the Republican Study Committee before splintering off to lead the House Freedom Caucus in 2015.
Ahead of Trump’s official announcement, House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters he hoped Trump would pick “a good movement conservative.”
“Clearly Mike [Pence] is one of those,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
Even those who steadfastly oppose Trump — and in some cases spent millions of dollars against him during the GOP primary — expressed enthusiasm about Pence rounding out the Republican presidential ticket.
Club for Growth President David McIntosh said Pence gives Republicans hope that he will “be effective in pulling the Republican ticket toward economic conservatism and limited government.”
Club for Growth Action, the political arm of the free market advocacy group, pursued several seven-figure ad buys against Trump in the early primary states, although the group’s communications director Doug Sachtleben was quick to note on Thursday that Pence maintained a “stellar” rating on the Club’s annual congressional scorecard during his time in Congress.
One conservative writer struck a different tone, claiming Pence is the ideal running mate for Trump because he, like the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is “a political has-been who betrayed people who trusted him.”
“Another signature achievement that makes Pence a perfect running mate for a man who thinks healthcare is one of the top three functions of the federal government is Pence’s unnecessary expansion of Obamacare,” Joy Pullman, managing editor of The Federalist, wrote in a column on Thursday.
Schlapp dismissed such claims, arguing that most conservatives regard Pence as someone who’s “stood up for conservative values consistently.”
“Governors have had to make tough calls in the era of Obamacare but Mike Pence is someone who will bring experience in understanding how to take one’s conservative philosophy and translate it into the policy environment that surrounds them,” he said.
Trump was set to formally announce his vice presidential during a press conference on Friday, but he postponed the event late Thursday evening after news broke of a deadly terror attack in Nice, France. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee and his running mate will instead appear together on Saturday for a press conference in New Jersey.
