That’s why Mike Pence failed with his attack on Trump Turkey is celebrating the founding of the republic 100 years ago

Mike Pence is an old-fashioned Republican. So President Donald Trump’s former deputy pulled the trigger early over the weekend and announced the end of his bid for the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate — although the 64-year-old career politician wasn’t the only out-of-the-way candidate in the election. now eight candidates.

Pence chose a Jewish Republican forum in Las Vegas, Nevada, for his announcement. At the end of a keynote speech in which Pence once again expressed his close ties to Israel, he paused and said, “Allow me to end on a personal note.” Pence said he needed to realize that the Bible verse “There is a time for everything” does not apply to his presidential bid. Therefore, “after much prayer and consideration,” he decided to withdraw from the race for the White House.

The audience reacted with surprise. It earned the former vice president warm applause when he announced he would “never stop” supporting principled conservative leaders. Pence also called on attendees to resist “the siren song” of populism.

In plain language: Donald Trump, Mike Pence’s direct superior in the US government from 2017 to 2021, probably cannot count on help from his election campaign. Because Trump embodies the developments in the Republican Party that Pence’s presidential candidacy was aimed at — primarily a party’s slide into a political sphere in which political principles are less important than the improvised pronouncements of an ex-president.

But it’s also true: Trump won’t be that concerned about this. Because while the ex-president is supported by a majority of Republican voters in survey after survey, Pence recently received about 3 percent. The flow of donations for his campaign also slowly dried up.

Pence reminded Trump of the Constitution

There were two reasons for this silence. First, Pence had made many enemies in his own party for directly criticizing the 77-year-old Trump. After initial hesitation, the former vice president repeatedly spoke during his numerous appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire about January 6, 2021 — the day angry Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington and endangered Mike Pence’s life.

Pence presided over a joint session of Congress on that bloody day, where the Senate and House of Representatives officially confirmed Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. In the eyes of the sitting president, Pence could have stopped this formality at the time to keep the Republicans in power. Trump still claims that today. But Pence disagreed, citing the Constitution. And he made no secret of it.

The second reason for the failure of the presidential candidacy of a man whose ambitions had been an open secret for decades: Pence represented political positions that were unable to win a majority. The Bible-based politician is campaigning for a national ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. Pence also spoke frequently about restructuring the deeply red federal budget and cutting popular social programs.

Trump opponents are wasting their energy

This was on principle, as Pence had made a name for himself as a conservative on fiscal and social policy after his first election to the national House of Representatives in 2000. But these positions have little in common with the modern Republican Party.

It is now unclear whether Mike Pence’s withdrawal marks the beginning of a consolidation of the Republican field. So far there are no signs of that. Trump’s two main opponents – Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley – want to hold on to their candidacy. The primaries begin in less than 80 days.