With Kemp rally, Pence prepares for 2024

Mike Pence
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan / Staff/ Getty Images)

Former Vice President Mike Pence knows what he's doing.

That is, he knows what his plan to rally for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Monday night represents — a significant break with former President Donald Trump — and "the symbolism alone will stand" without him even having to target the ex-president or the candidate he endorsed (former senator David Perdue) "in his remarks," The New York Times writes, per aides, in a new piece analyzing Pence's political position.

The distancing from Trump is all a part of the ex-VP's plan to "reintroduce himself to Republican voters" before a potential 2024 presidential bid, the Times reports. Pence is also actually one of few in the GOP who has said Trump's decision on the matter will bear no weight in whether or not he runs.

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The rallying with Kemp also arrives after Pence criticized Trump for incorrectly claiming the former vice president could have overturned the 2020 election, and is Pence's "boldest and most unambiguous step toward confronting his former political patron," the Times writes.

"We'll go where we're called," Pence told the Times regarding a 2024 run, adding that he and his wife will use prayer to decide. "That's the way Karen and I have always approached these things." Read more at The New York Times.

Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.