In a new interview, former Vice President Mike Pence said that anyone who is “serious” about running in the GOP presidential primary in 2024 needs to do so by June.
When CBS News asked Pence about when he would decide whether or not to run for president, he said that he would make a final choice “well before late June.” Since he entered the race last year, former President Donald Trump has dominated the polls as the party leader. Pence, on the other hand, hasn’t thrown his hat in the ring yet because he wants to talk about the idea with his family first.
In an interview clip that came out on Saturday, Pence said, “I think that anyone who is serious about running for the Republican nomination needs to be in this race by June.” “I think if we have something to say, it will be before the end of June.”
When asked if he was considering running for office, Pence said, “Well, I’m here in Iowa.” The answer could be taken as a yes, since it is usual for politicians to go to Iowa before the start of a presidential campaign, but it is not an official statement.
The former vice president has said many times that he hopes to talk about his plans for 2024 this spring. He keeps going to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which are early voting states, which shows that he is seriously thinking about running.
When asked about his plans in the middle of March, Pence said he had gotten “a lot of encouragement” to run.
“I can tell you we’re getting closer,” he said at the time about the choice he was trying to make. “I’ve been spending time with our family and listening to friends from all over the country. And I think we’ll know what our calling is before too long. It all depends on what we feel we are supposed to do.”
As Pence and Trump get closer to their expected rivalry in 2024, he has been slowly pulling away from him. This could be a taste of his plan for that year.
Pence didn’t talk much about what happened between him and Trump. Instead, he kept his distance until after the midterm elections last year. At the time, their fight kept coming up in the news when the two of them backed different candidates in GOP primaries. The primary races were both key tests for how much control Trump and Pence had over the GOP and showed how far apart they had become.
In his book, which came out a week after the midterms, he wrote about the months-long pressure campaign he had to deal with from the then-president because he refused to accept that his party had lost the election and accept that he couldn’t change it.
Since then, the former Vice President has decided not to back his former boss’s run for president in 2024. He says the Republican primary voters will have “better choices.”