The Republican presidential field is about to get a whole lot more crowded.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has filed federal paperwork ahead of an official campaign launch in Iowa on Wednesday. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a born-again Donald Trump hater, is slated to announce his campaign on Tuesday. And North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, looking to drive the moderate lane in the GOP presidential nomination race, is set to officially launch his campaign on Wednesday.
Pence, at U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast & Ride last weekend in Des Moines, teased that he would be back in Iowa to make his campaign announcement — suggesting just how important the first-in-the-nation caucus state is to the political prospects of the former Indiana governor.
“Republicans need a positive vision of the future grounded in conservative values,” Pence told the hundreds assembled Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds to hear from a long list of Republican presidential candidates.
Pence has been walking a fine line between singing the praises of the Trump-Pence years and separating himself from the former president. It’s a tricky but necessary tight rope act. Pence enters a presidential primary contest dominated by Trump. The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls shows the former president up by nearly 31 percentage points on his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who officially got into the race in Iowa a week ago. Not much has changed in the polling since.
Trump is averaging 53.2 percent among Republican voters surveyed, with DeSantis at 22.4 percent. Former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is running in 3rd place, at 4.4 percent, followed by Pence (3.8%) and Ohio entrepreneur and political outsider Vivek Ramaswamy, with 2.6 percent support. U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) is polling at 1.6 percent.
Pence will celebrate his 64th birthday on Wednesday as he launches his campaign at noon at the Des Moines Area Community College’s campus in Ankeny, a Des Moines suburb.
Christie, a former Trump ally who now calls him a “coward,” is planning a town hall meeting Tuesday at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.
The former New Jersey governor’s allies, led by the super PAC Tell It Like It Is, have said Christie’s entry would ensure the Republican Party “engages in the robust, direct, truth-telling conversation we need to start winning again.”
“Christie reportedly sees himself as the only serious Republican candidate willing to take on Trump and as someone who can appeal to enough independents to beat President Joe Biden in the general election,” CNN reported.
He’s currently polling at 1 percent nationally, tied with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who has confirmed he will not enter the race, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who also said he’s not interested in running for the White House.
Burgum released a video Monday previewing his message ahead of his presidential campaign announcement, scheduled for Wednesday in his home state.
In the video, the billionaire software venture capitalist talks about his roots, growing up in a tiny town in North Dakota, where “‘woke’ was what you did at 5 a.m. to start the day.”
He talked about the passing of his father when he was a freshman in high school, learning of his dad’s death on the basketball team bus. Burgum said he worked a variety of jobs, shining shoes, working at a grain elevator, as a chimney sweet, to pay his way through college. He earned an MBA at Stanford.
“I ignored those who said North Dakota was too small, too cold, and too remote to build a world-class software company,” the governor said. “So I literally bet the farm to help build a tiny startup into a billion-dollar company with customers in 132 countries. A kid from small town North Dakota. That’s America.”
Burgum is positioning himself as a “get-things-done” conservative who is above the fray of hostile politics — a veiled knock on Trump.
“Anger, yelling, infighting. That’s not going to cut it any more,” he said. “In North Dakota, we listen with respect and we talk things out. That’s how we can get America back on track.”
Burgum plans to campaign in Iowa on Thursday and Friday before heading to New Hampshire for weekend events. The campaign said details on the trip swing will be forthcoming.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Mike Pence” by Mike Pence. Photo “Chris Christie” by Chris Christie. Photo “Doug Burgum” by Governor Doug Burgum. Background Photo “White House” by Arian Zwegers. CC BY 2.0.
