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Former vice president Mike Pence stood up against Donald Trump one final time by announcing in a Fox News interview earlier this month that he would not endorse the former president’s 2024 campaign. Though before anyone awards Pence some sort of medal for doing the most logical thing, note that he said only that he wouldn’t support Trump, not that he would support Trump’s opponent, President Biden.
So I asked my Post Opinions colleagues Jason Willick and Ramesh Ponnuru: Should anti-Trump Republicans support President Biden’s reelection?
Alexi McCammond: Hey, guys! Would love your smarts on what’s going on with the GOP right now. Specifically, how big of a deal is it that Mike Pence refused to endorse Donald Trump for president this time around?
Ramesh Ponnuru: It is a big deal historically. There is little precedent for a vice president to refuse to endorse the president he served under. Whether it will be a big deal politically is a different question. Add it to the extensive evidence that people who worked closely with Trump, and whom he himself selected to work with him, think he is unfit for office. Maybe the accumulated weight of that judgment will have some effect on voters.
Jason Willick: Hi, Alexi! I actually don’t think it’s a big deal. Pence is just the latest high-level Trump administration official who has come out against his former boss. And he has done so in a less assertive way than others — stopping short of calling Trump a danger to the republic, for example. Trump chose Pence in 2016 as vice president because Pence was a very traditional conservative, and it appears that same traditional conservatism is leading Pence to decline to endorse Trump this time around.
Alexi: That’s what is interesting here: Pence focused more on Trump’s departure from what he sees as traditional conservatism and policies such as abortion and the national debt. Is it a more compelling argument to other Republicans (voters and officials, or people like Nikki Haley), given that he focused on policy more than Trump’s personality?
Jason: I think the segment of Republicans who won’t vote for Trump because he is *insufficiently* conservative is small. It sounded like Trump’s TikTok gymnastics — which Ramesh has written about — were a big deal for Pence. I hate to say it, but I actually think the ideological flexibility that Pence is complaining about will be an asset to Trump with some voters.
Ramesh: The characterological critique of Trump, on the other hand, seems pretty clearly to have held Trump’s numbers down throughout his political career. It’s why he had such terrible numbers even during the good economy of 2017-2019.
Jason: Yes, and his numbers cratered after Jan. 6, 2021, and Jan. 6 hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterms. Even though Pence is emphasizing other issues, I’m pretty sure he’d be endorsing Trump now if Trump hadn’t tried to enlist him to overturn the election.
Alexi: So where do anti-Trump Republicans — or serious conservatives — go from here? Do you guys see types like Pence or Liz Cheney becoming like John Kasich and showing up at the Democratic National Convention this summer? Should they endorse Biden? If they truly believe Trump is bad for their party and for the country, then I think they must.
Jason: Pence is in a different category from Cheney. He has not endorsed the Jan. 6 Trump prosecution. Like Ramesh said, he’s just sitting this out. He hasn’t totally broken with the GOP.
Ramesh: I also think there is some value to staking out the position that one can be an anti-Trump conservative without simply becoming a Democrat.
Jason: One question is whether it’s possible to imagine a Biden administration that could have actually won the support of anti-Trump Republicans. Probably a stretch in this polarized era. But this administration has not tried to court those people in a meaningful way. From cutting the defense budget in real terms to trying to nuke the filibuster to change election laws to climate regulations and executive orders — it’s just hard for any serious conservative to affirmatively support Biden.
Alexi: I hear you, but I think the question for Republicans, again, becomes: Why? Why are they refusing to endorse Trump? If it’s to protect their party’s future or the country, then I think those same people also have a duty to do whatever they can to try to stop Trump from winning.
Ramesh: For a Republican to refuse to endorse Trump hurts Trump, but not as much as an endorsement of Biden would. But those who decide to endorse neither are presumably not thinking first and foremost about how his decision will play politically; they are thinking about what they can morally countenance.
Alexi: I feel like even if you’re motivated by a moral compass, then you should be organizing for an outcome that will be safe and prosperous for all — or most. But maybe I’m asking for too much! Anyway.
Jason: I don’t agree that one has to choose one candidate or the other to endorse because one of them is likely to be president. I think endorsing neither is a legitimate exercise of one’s political freedom of association even if it doesn’t move the needle.
Ramesh: Amen, Jason.
The Republican Party now belongs to Trump, but it was Pence who in 2016 helped grant him credibility with the party by joining his ticket. Eight years later, Pence has been pushed so far outside Trump’s orbit that his refusal to endorse the guy who made him VP is hardly considered politically significant.
Dean Obeidallah writes for CNN that Pence’s non-endorsement would carry more weight if he focused more on Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021: “Given that Pence has already done the hard part — publicly breaking from Trump and speaking out against the former president — he needs to go further, hammering home his experience instead of watering down his message with policy differences.”
It’s notable that the left isn’t rushing to welcome Pence into the Trump resistance movement just yet. “Pence’s announcement that he won’t endorse Trump is particularly weak because he refuses to rule out voting for him,” Zeeshan Aleem writes for MSNBC. “That means, if he casts a ballot, he’ll vote either for a third-party candidate or for Trump. By publicly refusing to rule out a vote for Trump, his non-endorsement looks more like performative piety than it does a punch at his former boss — and a far cry from fomenting resistance within the GOP.”
But some conservatives see it differently, especially when looking back at history. As Jonathan V. Last writes for the Bulwark: “No American vice president has ever said that president he served under is unfit to serve. It is the most devastating possible observation from the most credible source in existence. Pence’s refusal to endorse Trump should be part of the context of every single story about this campaign.” Just because Trump is all but guaranteed the GOP’s presidential nomination doesn’t mean anti-Trump voices in the party should be dismissed — especially those who worked so closely with him.
On a subreddit for the progressive political podcast “The David Pakman Show,” people are sharing horror stories of friends who might not vote this fall after one user asked, “Are people seriously considering not voting? Specifically progressives?”
The top comments mostly tried to assuage this fear. “I’m not happy with Biden at all but he still has my vote,” wrote one user . “I don’t have the luxury of not voting. Anytime a vote is needed against fascism, I’m in,” replied another.
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