Former Vice President Mike Pence is hitting the speaking circuit once again less than a year after leaving office, but his reception h...
Former Vice President Mike Pence is hitting the speaking circuit once again less than a year after leaving office, but his reception has been lukewarm at best - and furious at worst.
'There are some Trump supporters who think he's the Antichrist,' an Iowa GOP official told Politico after Pence's first trip to the state since the election.
A recent Conservative Political Action Conference poll showed the ex-VP with just 1 percent of support for a possible 2024 run.
And while Iowa Republicans gave him a warm welcome Friday - calling him a 'man of faith,' Republicans in other parts of the country have been less friendly.
A recent CPAC straw poll found Mike Pence with no more than 1 percent of support (pictured here in Iowa on July 16)
At a June Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Florida, Pence was heckled and called a 'traitor' by crowds who were furious he didn't stop the certification of the presidential election on January 6.
The 62-year-old former Indiana governor defended his actions in late June, claiming at an event in California that 'The Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress.'
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said supporters of the ex-president 'understand Pence betrayed them' and so he's now 'being shunned and erased from the MAGA movement' as a result.
A nationwide survey conducted by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio showed Pence more favorably with 15 percent in a poll that does not include another Donald Trump campaign.
He would fall second behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who polled at 39 percent without a Trump 2024 bid.
A wide-ranging poll of a potential 2024 Republican primary field without Donald Trump found Pence (left) to be a distant second behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (right)
In a poll with Trump included, Pence's support falls to single digits, according to Politico.
'It's just, where would you place him?' a Republican operative who formerly worked for Iowa Governor Terry Branstad questioned in a separate Politico report. 'With Trumpsters, he didn’t perform when they really wanted him to perform, so he’s DQ’d there. Then you go to the evangelicals, they have plenty of other choices.'
A former official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses described Pence's unique position.
'He’s got to justify to the Trumpistas why he isn’t Judas Iscariot, and then he’s got to demonstrate to a bunch of other Republicans why he hung out with someone they perceive to be a nutjob,' Strategist Sean Walsh said in the report.
Former President Donald Trump still ranks at the top of Republican voters' choices for a 2024 candidate, according to Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio
Pence admitted earlier this year he would never 'see eye to eye' with Trump on the January 6 Capitol assault that saw him evacuated from the building as the ex-president's supporters chanted 'Hang Mike Pence'
On his own part, Pence has been careful not to speak in extreme terms when it comes to his former boss.
He said earlier this year that he and Trump might never 'see eye to eye' on the January 6 insurrection, when the then-vice president had to be evacuated from the Capitol as angry rioters supporting the ex-president chanted 'Hang Mike Pence.'
However, Pence also said he 'couldn't be more proud' to have served with the populist leader.
For now, his recent messages appear to be less focused on Trump and more on criticizing the Biden-Harris administration.
'I came here today to say, after 177 days of open borders, higher taxes, runaway spending, defunding the police, abortion on demand, censoring free speech, canceling our most cherished liberties, I've had enough,' he said in Des Moines last week, adding that the time has come 'to stand up and fight back against the agenda of the radical left.'
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