Does Mike Pence Still Have a Chance in 2024?

Remember “lanes”? Pundits used to — maybe some still do — discuss presidential candidates in terms of which lane they were supposedly running in, with the implication being that they’re only competing with others within that lane. It never made much sense, as political scientist Dave Hopkins explained. But let’s say that former Vice President Mike Pence, who gave a policy speech yesterday in Chicago, is running in the “pretend that Republicans are a normal party” lane.

After all, if Republicans were a normal political party — if they were, for example, like the Republican Party of the 1980s — Pence would be a solid frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination. Sitting vice presidents who run for an open nomination generally get it, both in the old pre-reform system (Richard Nixon in 1960 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968) and the modern one (George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Al Gore in 2000). Former vice presidents who later run are generally successful as well — Nixon again in 1968, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Joe Biden in 2020 all captured nominations, with Humphrey coming extremely close in 1972. Only Dan Quayle in 2000 tried and utterly failed.

Not only that, but they almost all try. Every vice president from 1953 on has run for president except for Spiro Agnew, who resigned from office in a plea-bargain deal; Nelson Rockefeller, who served briefly, was dumped by Gerald Ford when Ford tried for a new term, and died anyway before the next presidential election; and Dick Cheney, who had health issues, among other things.

Within Pence’s “pretend” lane, he’s a formidable candidate. He’s as orthodox a conservative Republican as can be; there’s really no policy question on which Pence disagrees with the party. Even before he served as vice president, he already had conventional qualifications for a major-party nomination. And while all vice presidents are subjects of mockery and none of them looks impressive while they’re in office, Pence managed to survive four years of Donald Trump’s administration without causing personal scandal or destroying his reputation, which is not something very many folks within that administration can claim.

And yet the Republicans, however hard Pence may want to pretend, are nothing like a normal party. And so while Pence may want to believe that his complete loyalty to Trump for three years and eleven months is what counts, what we know is that all that loyalty plus his refusal to go along with a scheme to undermine the Constitution that almost certainly wouldn’t have worked anyway put Pence on the receiving end of a mob screaming for his neck. And that a year and a half later, hardly anyone in the party wants to criticize the president who instigated that mob. All of which has Pence barely distinguishable from the also-rans of the party when it comes to the 2024 nomination, at least according to pundits and the wagering public.

Even so, I’d be very hesitant to dismiss Pence’s chances just yet. There are good reasons that vice presidents do so well in nomination contests. They enter the race with name recognition among voters, yes. But they also spend a good deal of their four or eight years in office schmoozing with party actors and building relationships than can later pay off. It’s not just the personal connections; the vice presidency, including the national campaign needed to win the office, provides a deep education in the skills needed to accommodate all of the party’s groups and factions. Indeed, one reason vice presidents look so unimpressive during their time in office is their learned ability to put loyalty to the president and to party coalitions above all else — which turns out to be a significant asset when contesting nominations. At least in normal parties. So I’d caution against entirely writing off a former vice president. No matter what Trump says about him.

But I’d also remind everyone that looking at nominations in terms of which candidate wins isn’t the only or the best way to think about it. Nominations define parties. Especially presidential nominations. They determine which groups, factions, policies and styles are the dominant ones within the party. And while candidates are part of that, the reverse is also true: The winning candidate winds up absorbing and reflecting that new dominant party coalition.

So it’s worth paying attention to Pence’s fate as he runs for the 2024 nomination. And, for Republican party actors, it’s very much worth fighting for the fate of the party as it once again goes through a cycle of defining itself.