Former Vice President Mike Pence was in Ankeny Wednesday to officially throw his name into the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Pence used the event to highlight his break with Donald Trump over the 2020 election and propose himself as a leader who would return the party to its conservative values.
Pence is the highest ranking challenger to Trump, having served alongside him in the White House. He told potential voters he is proud of what the administration accomplished, but not with how it ended.
Pence said he has no regrets for certifying the results of the 2020 election against Trump’s wishes. The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a “tragic day,” he said, adding that Trump’s “words were reckless” and endangered him and his family by targeting the anger of Capitol rioters against the vice president.
“The American people deserve to know that on that day President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and Constitution,” Pence said. “Now voters will be faced with same choice. I chose the Constitution and I always will.”
Pence said Trump asked him to block the results of the election even though the Constitution did not give him that authority.
“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again,” he said.
It was Pence’s first time in Iowa as an official candidate, but he has made frequent visits over the past two years. A staunch opponent of abortion rights, Pence is expected to focus heavily on Iowa and its base of conservative Christian voters to try to build momentum toward the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.
He’ll also try to attract voters who want to go back to Trump policies but believe the former president is no longer the best person to lead the country. A GOP nominee can beat President Joe Biden, Pence said, “but we must resist the politics of personality and the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles.”
Pence said his campaign will promote a “traditional Republican agenda” of lowering taxes, balancing the budget, and strengthening the national defense. That should include, he said, supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal,” Pence said, referring to Trump’s comment complimenting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the start of the invasion. “I know the difference between a territorial dispute and a war of aggression. The war in Ukraine is not our war, but freedom is our fight. America must always stand for freedom and when I’m your president we will.”
Pence said he considers the confirmation of three Supreme Court justices one of the Trump administration’s greatest accomplishments. That led to the Dobbs decision nearly one year ago that overturned federal protections for abortion access. Now, Pence said, he supports action at the federal level to establish nationwide abortion restrictions.
“I will always stand for the sanctity of life and I will not rest, and I will not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land,” he said.
Pence joins a field of GOP candidates that grew more crowded this week with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum also launching their campaigns.
