'He just needs to go away': GOP voters express total disdain for Mike Pence

21 March 2023

When Donald Trump chose then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate in the United States' 2016 presidential election, it made perfect sense to the former Democrat turned far-right "America First" Republican. Pence was a severe social conservative with an anti-gay, anti-abortion track record, and he was popular with the Religious Right and Protestant fundamentalist white evangelicals.

But that was before Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democratic now-President Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes only to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him — a claim that has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked. Trump hoped that during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, then-VP Pence would overturn Biden's Electoral College victory; Pence maintained that he did not have the authority to do so. Some of the pro-Trump insurrectionists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building that day were chanting, "Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence" and set up a hangman's gallows outside.

Despite the fact that some of Trump's supporters wanted to lynch him, Pence is reluctant to criticize Trump or say anything to offend MAGA voters. Pence appears to be gearing up for a 2024 presidential run. But according to The Atlantic's McKay Coppins, many Republican voters still hold him in very low regard.

In an article published by The Atlantic on March 21, Coppins reports, "Mike Pence is making little secret of his presidential ambitions. He’s written his book, he's assembling his team, he's mastered the art of the coy non-denial when somebody asks — in between trips to Iowa — if he's running. In early Republican-primary polls, he hovers between 6 and 7 percent — not top-tier numbers, but respectable enough. He seems to think he has at least an outside shot at winning the Republican nomination. And yet, ask a Republican voter about the former vice president, and you’re likely to hear some of the most withering commentary you’ve ever encountered about a politician."

Coppins goes on to describe the scathing things that GOP voters have said about Pence in focus groups recently conducted by Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist/consultant who holds strong Never Trump views and supported Biden in 2020.

One of them said of the ex-VP, "He has alienated every Republican and Democrat.… It's over. It's retirement time." Another remarked, "He's only gonna get the vote from his family, and I'm not even sure if they like him." And one of the voters commented, "He just needs to go away."

Many of the Republican voters in the focus groups, according to Coppins, believe that Pence let Trump down. But others see him as too close to Trump.

A Republican voter named Barbara commented, "The only thing I liked about him was that he actually did stand up to Donald Trump. He's too a part of Trump. I don't think Trump has a chance, and I don't think anybody in that inner circle has a chance either."

Read The Atlantic’s full articleat this link.

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