Ex-VP Pence makes pitch to NH voters
5 things to know ahead of Friday’s town hall
Former Vice President Mike Pence meets with New Hampshire voters Friday, the latest Republican presidential hopeful to participate in this week’s town hall forums hosted by Seacoastonline and the USA TODAY Network.
The presidential forums will be held at the historic Exeter Town Hall on Front Street in Exeter, New Hampshire, an iconic location that has long been a favorite of presidential candidates. It’s where the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, spoke in March 1860, shortly before launching his successful campaign.
Pence is the first former vice president in modern times to run against the president under whom he served.
Here are five things to know about Mike Pence ahead of the event.
Pence broke with Trump on Jan. 6
During most of his four years in the Trump administration, Pence was loyal to President Donald Trump, being careful to never steal the spotlight from the president and keeping any disagreements they had out of sight.
That changed on Jan. 6, 2021, when Pence refused to use his ceremonial role overseeing Congress’ acceptance of the nation’s electoral college vote to try to overturn the election. Trump branded him a coward, and Pence’s safety was threatened by rioters storming the Capitol. Pence has since said Trump’s actions disqualify him for a second shot at the White House.
“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said while launching his campaign in June.
Political career before Trump
While Pence entered the race with high name recognition, he argued he was well known but not known well.
He’s sought to reintroduce himself to voters as a former Indiana governor and congressman. In the U.S. House, he was a leader among conservatives pushing back on government spending, including a Medicare drug benefit and President George H.W. Bush’s signature education bill.
As Indiana governor, Pence pushed through tax cuts and expanded health care through an alternative Medicaid program. He also drew national attention for signing and then backtracking on a bill that critics said would have allowed businesses to deny services to LGBTQ people. Before being elected to office, Pence was the host of a conservative radio talk show that he called “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”
Fighting abortion is a long-time cause for Mike Pence
“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
Pence regularly tells voters that his fight “for the babies” was his motivation for running for Congress, where he was willing to shut down the federal government in 2011 in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood.
As Indiana’s governor, he signed one of the nation’s most restrictive antiabortion laws. As vice president, he was the Trump administration’s most prominent opponent of abortion.
And as a presidential candidate, he’s criticized Trump and other rivals for not taking a strong enough stance on an issue that Pence said requires “unapologetic leadership.”
He has vowed that he won’t rest or relent “until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the country.” Pence supports a nationwide ban on abortion, as opposed to the state-by-state approach adopted after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade last year.
Mike Pence calls Donald Trump populism a ‘road to ruin’ for GOP
Before Pence rode Trump’s populist wave to the White House, his political hero was former President Ronald Reagan. Now that Pence wants to return to Washington as president, he’s warning his party that Trump’s populism is a “road to ruin.”
“Will we be the party of conservatism or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles?” Pence said at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in September. “The future of this movement in this party belongs to one or the other – not both.”
Pence is trying to revive Reagan’s “three-legged stool” rubric of uniting social, economic and defense conservatives.
He’s criticized Trump for not being sufficiently conservative on restricting abortion and reforming federal benefits, as well as accusing him of wanting the U.S. to retreat from playing a strong international role.
Pence said that the populist movement in the Republican Party would rather “substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage.”
Mike Pence wants to restore civility in public life
Pence has long called himself a “Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
He frequently references his faith and has said he can create the conditions for solving the big issues facing the nation by restoring civility in public life.
“It’s always been our aspiration to treat others the way we want to be treated, to show that you can take a strong stance on your principles but be respectful of differing viewpoints,” he told USA TODAY. Democracy, he argues, depends on heavy doses of civility.
“Part of the reason I’m running,” he tells voters, “is because I think there’s a real desire across the country for us to elevate the debate.”