Former U.S. VP Mike Pence drops out of Republican presidential campaign
The Hindu
Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence ended his cash-strapped presidential campaign on Saturday, after struggling for months to convince Republican voters he was the best alternative to the man he once served with unswerving loyalty, Donald Trump.
Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence ended his cash-strapped presidential campaign on Saturday, after struggling for months to convince Republican voters he was the best alternative to the man he once served with unswerving loyalty, Donald Trump.
"To the American people I say: This is not my time," Mr. Pence told attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition donor conference in Las Vegas.
Mr. Pence, 64, publicly broke with Mr. Trump, lambasting the former president for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Pence gambled that Republican primary voters would reward him for following the U.S. Constitution rather than obeying Trump, who wanted him to overturn the 2020 election results.
But Mr. Trump's base of core supporters never forgave Pence for overseeing the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election. They viewed Pence's actions in his ceremonial role as president of the U.S. Senate as a supreme act of disloyalty to Trump, who has become the runaway frontrunner in the Republican nominating race.
Mr. Trump has built one of the biggest primary opinion poll leads in U.S. electoral history. Polls show a majority of Republican voters have embraced, or do not care about, Trump's lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and his subsequent efforts to overturn the result.
Mr. Pence stopped short of endorsing anyone in his speech on Saturday, but in an apparent swipe at Trump, called on Americans to select someone who appeals to "the better angels of our nature" and can lead with "civility."
Mr. Pence failed to attract enough anti-Trump Republican primary voters, and donors, to sustain a candidacy that has languished in the low single digits in opinion polls and struggled to raise money since he announced his White House bid in June.