Pence unveils his `Freedom Agenda' as he weighs a run

Platform has GOP goals and Trump priorities

NEW YORK >> Former Vice President Mike Pence is offering a “Freedom Agenda” platform for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterm elections, presenting a framework for GOP candidates — and possibly himself for a 2024 presidential run.

Pence’s platform, released Thursday, combines traditional Republican goals such as increasing American energy production, cutting taxes and rolling back regulations, with priorities pursued by former President Donald Trump on issues like trade and immigration.

Pence also offers plenty of culture war red meat for the GOP base, pledging, for instance, to save women’s sports by “ensuring that sports competitions are between those who share their God-given gender” and calling for all high school students to pass a civics test.

“Elections are about the future, and I think it’s absolutely essential that, while we do our part to take the fight to the failed policies of the Biden administration and the radical left, at the same time, we want to offer a compelling vision built on our highest American ideals,” Pence told reporters ahead of the plan’s release.

“It really is an effort to put in one place the agenda that I think carried us to the White House in 2016, carried two Bush presidencies to the White House and carried Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980.”

Much of the 28-page plan reads like the platform of a presidential campaign, underscoring Pence’s ambitions and providing a clear road map of the themes and policies he is likely to pursue if he moves forward with a 2024 run.

While Pence in recent weeks has worked to distance himself from his former boss as he begins to reintroduce himself to voters and develop a political identity of his own, he has also been careful to tie himself to the policies of the Trump-pence administration, which remain extremely popular among Republican voters.

It’s part of what aides see as Pence’s unique opportunity, as a former talk radio host, congressman and Indiana governor, to merge the traditional conservative movement with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.