In the modern era of open presidential primaries (which began after the disastrous and idiotic conventions of 1968) most Vice-Presidents who have decided to throw their hat into the ring, have been made their party's presidential nominee at some point.
VP Mondale (77-81) [D] - 1984
VP HW.Bush (81-89) [R] - 1992
VP Quayle (89-93) [R] - failed
VP Gore (93-01) [D] - 2000
VP Biden (09-17) [D] - 2020
That leaves speculation about the 2024 Presidential Election open about who is even going to run, far less of a shot in the dark than it otherwise would have been in a normal election cycle.
Presumably former President Trump will run again because being a one term president, not only is he still entitled to run for President but even if he was convicted of a crime, he would still be eligible because Article I, Section 1 contains no disability for criminals to run for President.
On the 16th June 2015, when the mogul took a trip down the golden escalator to announce his tilt for the White House, I think that almost everyone though that this might have been nothing more than a political joke; perhaps it was. I think that as the debates wore on and that people actually started voting for him, that this was beyond a joke and I do not think that at any point that Trump actually had any kind of plan for beyond 9th of November 2016.
To put that on the same time frame for the 2024 Presidential Election would mean that announcements would be made around about June of 2023 but things changed on that summer day in New York City in 2015. I think that it is fair to say that the 2020 Presidential Campaign started on the day that Trump won the 2016 election and that his 2024 Presidential Campaign started on the day that he lost the 2020 election.
If Trump has already begun to plot a 2024 campaign, then we can assume that any other potential Republican nominee and perhaps any potential Democrat nominee, must surely be in full panic mode.
Presumably if Trump decides to run again, then most political pundits would pit Biden as incumbent against Trump who would technically be the outsider again. The only other President to have won non-consecutive terms is Grover Cleveland.
Polls such as Quinnipiac and Gallup, seems to suggest that we are heading for a Trump/Biden rematch but that presumes that Biden is running again and that Trump would take the Republican nomination again.
What happens if Mike Pence decides to run for President? I do not know to what degree that Trump would savage him in the same way that he tore his rivals for the 2016 nomination to shreds but in doing so, he might very well end up tearing down his own platform.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/03/politics/pence-trump-january-6/index.html
Speaking at a dinner hosted by the Hillsborough County Republican Committee in New Hampshire, the former vice president said he and Trump have spoken "many times" since leaving office and he remains proud of their accomplishments.
But, Pence added, "I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on that day."
- CNN, 4th Jun 2021
There is more to that video on CNN's website but this was the starting point where Pence has appeared to put distance between himself and the President that he served under. During the January 6 insurrection, for the first time in four years, Pence appeared to find a spine as he refused to to do Trump’s bidding by illegally subverting the Electoral College count.
This video also has Pence extolling some of the accomplishments of the Trump administration; which I suppose is him trying to claim some sort of credit by inference. What that does is put Pence in a unique position because rather than trying to attack Trump from without, he can claim to be working from the inside; which nobody else can.
Now I have no idea where that places Pence in any kind of head-to-head polling against Trump but I do know that Pence wants to follow the rules of politics like he always has done and that might be attractive to Republican voters who feel alienated by a party which has shifted to the racist right under the de facto leader of Trump. They might feel as though their party has been taken away from them by a boorish git and Pence can stand in as the well-meaning level head at the wheel.
Given all of this and with the benefit that I can be completely wrong, then these are my predictions for what I think are the four most likely outcomes:
Biden v Trump = Biden win
Harris v Trump = Trump win
Biden v Pence = Pence win
Harris v Pence = Harris win
Biden was chosen by Democrat voters in the Primaries because he was seen as a safe pair of hands. Basically, once Bernie Sanders dropped out of the running, there wasn't really any other sensible alternative. We have no idea if Biden will run again in 2024 but if he decides not to, Harris is the likely next candidate as she would represent continuity in the administration and as the United States Senator from California, she has competence in how governmental process works.
Pence as both a former Representative from the state of Indiana and as a former Governor of that same state, already possesses competence in how governmental process works and in running an administration. He was probably picked as Vice-President in the first instance, precisely to be that safe pair of hands if former President Trump died in office. None of those things changed while he was Vice-President.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0278
"But my Country has in its Wisdom contrived for me, the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived: and as I can do neither good nor Evil, I must be born away by Others and meet the common Fate."
- John Adams, to Abagail Adams, 19 Dec 1793.
The office of Vice-President as observed by Adams was from the outset, almost but not entirely useless. For the opening period of Trump's Presidency when Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, as the only function that the Vice-President has apart from presiding over Senate deliberations, is to cast a tie-breaking vote. During Congress 115, it was split 52-48; so there was never any need to break ties. During Congress 116, it was split 51-49; so there was never any need to break ties. That means that for the entirely of Pence's term as Vice-President, he had no actual function and as his President paid no attention to him, he had no pretended or delegated function.
That may work to his advantage. If Pence can convince the boring conservative voters of Republican caucuses that he wasn't responsible for the actions of the loon in the White House, that just might be enough to draw them to vote for him. Pence 2024 could very well be a perfectly reasonable thing to vote for in the minds of a lot of Republican voters. A Pence Presidency would be a nothing presidency in the same way that the Biden and Obama presidencies were. However, since elections are about gaining control of positions for the here and now, the idea of a long legacy continuing in 2028 are too long to game out.
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