The former vice-president has taken one of the first traditional steps of a presidential campaign, travelling across New Hampshire, which hosts the first primary in the 2024 vote, to meet activists, raise money and deliver a speech attacking Joe Biden.
Pence, who has nursed White House ambitions since his teens, has also visited the early-voting states of Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, implying that a run is more likely than not.
But there is one problem: Donald Trump. The ex-president, whom Pence served faithfully – or obsequiously, in the eyes of critics – has not forgiven him for ignoring his plea to overturn the result of the 2020 election when he presided over the Senate as it certified Biden’s victory.
Pence’s continued insistence that he did his constitutional duty on 6 January, and had no power to block Biden, has done little to assuage the sense of betrayal among livid Trump supporters. “The people that he’s going to need to vote for him – the Republican primary base – are also the people who wanted to hang him on 6 January,” said Kurt Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide who advises the Democratic National Committee. “I don’t see how you overcome that.”
Denne historien er fra December 17, 2021-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra December 17, 2021-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
