Pence Looks to Iowa as 2024 Looms

The former VP’s political nonprofit is spending seven figures on a digital ad campaign in the key state.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence greets guests at a Republican lunch Waverly, Iowa, in August 2022. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Mike Pence is headed to Iowa the same day rival Nikki Haley is announcing  her presidential bid. The former vice president will headline a grassroots rally and launch a statewide advertising campaign as part of a fresh foray into the key 2024 battleground. 

Pence will begin next Wednesday in St. Paul, Minnesota, delivering a speech supporting Iowa parents suing a Linn County school district in federal court over its student gender-transition policies. Pence then will travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to powwow with voters at a Pizza Ranch restaurant, a stop popular among Republican presidential contenders. He will use the event to launch a $1 million-plus effort by his political nonprofit organization to “combat the radical left’s indoctrination of children.”

“Advancing American Freedom will not rest until parental rights are restored in Iowa and across the nation,” the former vice president said in a statement shared with The Dispatch. 

For now, Donald Trump is the only declared major candidate in the 2024 presidential race. But Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, will jump into the race next Wednesday with a late morning rally in Charleston, South Carolina, before heading to New Hampshire for two days of campaigning.  

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  1. Avatar photo
    Donahoe1

    FWIW I worked in professional film/video production in my early career, and frequently worked on political ads for TV. I did work on a TV spot with Pence in early 2000 for his first run for Congress and spent a full day with him. Unequivocally, the most disingenuous, contrived person I'd ever met running for office and I've never met anyone less sincere since. His whole on-camera persona was completely fake. He seemed relatively normal when the camera wasn't rolling, but he would flip into this weird, furrowed-brow, whisper-voiced, android on camera that was chilling to watch. I think of that shoot every time the thought crosses my mind of him being President. Hard-pass.

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  2. Emma

    Sorry Pence, I'm very proud of you for defending the constitution, but you're not going to be the nominee.

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  3. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

  4. Jack H Wolf

    It is beginning to look a lot like 2016. If Republicans rush in to the fray without a coordinated approach in dealing with Trump, then with a fairly unshakable 30% he is the likely winner.
    I saw a poll for SC where Trump prevails if both Scott and Haley run and split their vote.
    Many state primaries in the GOP are winner take all, or a hybrid version of this.
    One notable state that is winner take all and the second biggest delegate haul is FL and DeSantis is well in the lead, so that bodes poorly for Trump. On the other hand if the non Trump candidates dont pick and choose their primaries and let the strongest candidate (DeSantis in FL, Pence in IN etc.) go head to head they will cancel each other out and give it to Trump

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  5. Avatar photo
    Loganrjudy

    It seems to me that Pence's career is such that he has absolutely no path to the presidency.

    To Trump skeptics, he happily served a madman and only put his foot down when things got cartoonishly bad.

    To Trump fans, he's a traitor.

    It seems exceedingly unlikely that there are enough GOP voters in between those two poles to secure a nomination. And he almost certainly won't get *all* of those votes with other Trump-era Republicans in the race, especially those who may less offensive to the populist base.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Fighting Armadillo

    As an Evangelical, Pence should eschew the Hail Mary Pass.

    The Trump years showed that a large portion of the Republican Party’s Evangelical base would rather have a trash-talking “Alpha-dog fighter” than a soft-spoken born-again Christian. In a primary that includes Trump, DeSantis and/or Kari Lake, Pence will learn to call primary days the feast of Passover.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    Pence was just subpoenaed in the 1/6 by the special council. Good timing.

    Now the question: does he cooperate and bury Trump, or does he play wanna-be MAGA king and fit the cops just like Trump and his other followers do? Decisions... decisions...

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  8. Betsybowditch

    Pence could split the non-Trump vote and enable his former boss to prevail.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    I don't see Pence winning, but stranger things have happened. He actually is competing for Trump voters more than the other candidates; if he wins them (which is a big IF), he'll be very competitive. Evangelicals love Pence, they tolerated Trump. If they switch to Pence, it's a viable block of support.

    I see many people angry at Pence for becoming the Veep. My question is simple: Once Trump won the nomination, and you couldn't change that, who then did you want Trump to pick as his running mate? What specific Republican would have been a better Veep for Trump? No fair saying "I didn't want Trump", 'cause he won, fair and square (despite what many progs claimed). What Republican would you support as his Veep? Veeps are supposed to be loyal to POTUS, which Pence was.

    A Veep is a great job, and I hold it against no one that they are willing to take the role.

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    1. BadgerBill

      I don’t want Trump.

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    2. Retired Prosecutor

      But will Pence win over those Trump voters after he viciously stabbed The Don in the back, and bizarrely obeyed the commands of the Constitution? By the way, if Trump wins the nomination this outing (heaven help us!) it looks like he could be picking the irrepressible Marjorie Taylor Greene!

      My honest view is that Pence is another of that group ending up as 2024 1% or 2%'ers.

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      1. BadgerBill

        “Irrepressible” is not the first adjective that comes to mind…

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        1. Retired Prosecutor

          A career in prosecuting criminals has made sarcasm a hobby.

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  10. BadgerBill

    No chance, none. Traitor to MAGA World, sycophant to moderates, who was lionized for counting votes, and who agonized over it, as opposed to just counting votes.

    Nope. Still haven’t seen a Republican I can vote for again. I think wondering in the wilderness for 40 years may be appropriate.

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    1. Christopher Lake

      BadgerBill, ten years ago, I never imagined being in the place that I now am, regarding the Republican Party. This formerly faithful Republican voter is so disgusted with the Party's trajectory since 2016 (and likely earlier-- I was probably just naive about it) that it's increasingly hard for me to find Republicans that I can simply respect enough to even give them my vote in good conscience. They do exist, but there aren't many of them anymore.

      I could, and would, vote for Larry Hogan for President, if he were running, but he has the same problem as any vocally non-MAGA Republican these days-- he is viewed as a RINO by so many in "the base" that there is no possible way that he could become President. I would definitely vote for him if he were to run though. Nation-wide, though, Republicans like him seem to be viewed by much of the current base as either weaklings or traitors to the Party-- which is why I haven't felt at home in the Party for some time.

      I can't go back to the Democrats, either, for multiple reasons. I was a hardcore leftist as a teenager, but that was before the spiritual and philosophical realignment of my life that brought me to the Republican Party. That same realignment, today, has left me all but politically homeless. I could likely vote for a more conservative Democrat (a vocally pro-life one, for example), but with a very few exceptions, they are increasingly difficult to find on the left (and have been for quite some time). I fervently wish that the U.S. had more than two major political Parties, both locally and nationally speaking, as viable options for voting, in terms of actually getting people elected. As it is, I may well be wandering in the wilderness, politically, for the rest of my life.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Michaeld

        Alas, this is why we are part of The Remnant...

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    2. Retired Prosecutor

      Pence has a double handicap: the GOP Trumpists think he sold them out and the anti-Trumpist GOP members think he was too cozy with Trump during the four years.

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