Mike Pence couldn’t have requested for a extra welcoming viewers. For almost half-hour, the person who served as Donald J. Trump’s vice chairman was repeatedly applauded as he supplied a vigorous affirmation of his assist for Israel at a convention of largely conservative Jewish leaders in midtown Manhattan.
He barely paused when his questioner, Zvika Klein, the editor in chief of The Jerusalem Put up, requested Mr. Pence, an evangelical Christian, to steer the room in prayer for the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on Oct. 7. “It will be my nice honor: Allow us to pray,” he mentioned.
His invocation drew applause and shouts of “Amen.”
Within the seven months since he dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, within the face of inevitable defeats within the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire major, Mr. Pence has been in search of out pleasant audiences like this one as he embarks on a mission to resuscitate his political profession. However simply as importantly, he’s presenting himself because the guardian of the conservative traditions of a Republican Occasion that he grew up with and which have since been redefined by Mr. Trump.
He has begun turning up on high-profile tv interviews to criticize Mr. Trump’s place on abortion, in a single instance. He introduced that his political advocacy group would spend $20 million this yr on appearances and ads that promote endangered conservative positions on points together with tariffs, authorities spending and America’s position on the planet.
Mr. Pence is essentially the most outstanding Republican within the nation to declare that he wouldn’t endorse Mr. Trump, the person who selected Mr. Pence when he was governor of Indiana and put him within the White Home. And he has made clear that, on the age of 65, he isn’t foreclosing one other bid for the presidency.
“The position I wish to play is to be a champion for a broad, mainstream conservative agenda that’s outlined the Republican Occasion for the reason that days of Ronald Reagan,” he mentioned in an interview earlier than his look on the convention. “I see some proof that some voices in and round our get together are departing from that — I would like my voice, my group, to be an anchor to windward.”
But for all that, Mr. Pence is clearly out of step with the get together that when embraced him. For a lot of Trump loyalists, he’s nonetheless the vice chairman who refused to associate with Mr. Trump to carry on to energy on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Judas Pence is a useless man strolling with MAGA, whatever the 30 items of silver in his PAC,” mentioned Stephen Okay. Bannon, a frontrunner in Mr. Trump’s motion, referring to Mr. Pence’s advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom. (He made his remarks in a textual content just a few hours earlier than a federal decide ordered him to report back to jail by July 1 to start out serving a four-month jail time period imposed on him for disobeying a subpoena from the Home committee that investigated the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.)
Together with his low-key, Midwestern presence, Mr. Pence stands in sharp distinction with the Republican Occasion of at this time, personified by Mr. Trump and, for that matter, by Mr. Bannon. Within the interview, Mr. Pence, talking softly as he settled on a sofa, appeared greatly surprised by the suggestion that he had grow to be an island in his personal get together, a Republican Robinson Crusoe standing alone as Mr. Trump remakes their get together in his title.
“I hope not,” he mentioned. “I hope I’m on a continent. I’m the place I’ve at all times been since I joined the Republican Occasion.”
“Once I was working for president, folks would usually say, ‘Mike Pence’s downside is that he’s working in a Republican Occasion that doesn’t exist anymore,’” Mr. Pence mentioned. “That wasn’t my expertise. In all places I went on the marketing campaign path, folks, whether or not they had been supporting the previous president or supporting another person, virtually invariably would say, ‘I respect what you stand for.’ I’m satisfied that that is nonetheless a conservative get together.”
But the indicators of his isolation are plentiful. Mr. Pence mentioned he had not spoken to Mr. Trump “for a very long time.” Republicans say it’s unlikely that he might be supplied a outstanding talking spot when the get together gathers for its conference this July in Milwaukee. A YouGov/Economist ballot from March discovered that 52 % of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Mr. Pence, in contrast with 42 % who had a good view of the previous vice chairman.
And regardless of the best way he recalled his reception on the presidential path, Mr. Pence by no means broke out of the one digits in many of the early polls, even with the benefit of being a former vice chairman. He was compelled to drop out of the race earlier than he even made it to Iowa.
The notion of a former vice chairman not supporting the president he served is so extraordinary that President Biden invoked it in a sharp-edged joke on the White Home Correspondents’ Affiliation dinner this yr.
Against this, Nikki Haley, the previous United Nations ambassador, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who each drew way more assist in their very own unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination, mentioned they might vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence mentioned he wouldn’t vote for Mr. Biden, however wouldn’t say who he would possibly assist.
“I like Mike very a lot — I strongly beneficial him to Trump in ’16,” mentioned Newt Gingrich, the previous Republican speaker of the Home. However he mentioned: “Mike Pence now finds himself in a celebration that sounds completely different than it used to whereas interesting to a constituency that’s completely different from two years in the past. And sadly for Mike, that tends to drive him right into a nook. At his present trajectory, he’s going to shrink down into the By no means Trump vote.”
“There isn’t a future within the Republican Occasion in being the anti-Trump,” Mr. Gingrich mentioned.
Mr. Pence has walked a positive line as he has sought in these previous months to tell apart himself — and criticize — a determine as enormously well-liked within the get together as Mr. Trump, a former ally who’s making an attempt to muscle Mr. Pence out of the highlight.
Within the interview, Mr. Pence denounced the case towards Mr. Trump that led to his convictions on 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise data to cowl up a $130,000 hush-money fee to a porn star. “I count on his felony convictions might be overturned. This case ought to by no means have been introduced.”
However on the Jerusalem Put up discussion board, he barely talked about Mr. Trump aside from to hyperlink himself to Mr. Trump’s determination, as well-liked on this room as the previous president himself, to maneuver the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Mr. Pence argued that it’s Mr. Trump who has modified over these previous 4 years, drifting away from conventional Republican positions.
“On a complete vary of points, I’ve seen the president working on an agenda that’s completely different than what we ruled on,” Mr. Pence mentioned. “I see the president shifting within the course of among the isolationist voices in our get together. Or the nationwide debt — he by no means even tried to reform the entitlements that represented 85 % of our federal spending.”
Mr. Pence has been notably vocal in assailing Mr. Trump on abortion. Whereas Mr. Pence and lots of different conservatives are pushing for a nationwide ban on the process, Mr. Trump has known as for leaving restrictions to the states. Mr. Pence’s place has earned him some admirers in vital corners of the Republican coalition.
“He’s the regular rudder of the pro-life motion amongst Republican leaders,” mentioned Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America, a number one group opposing abortion rights. “He doesn’t change. He has by no means been an individual who was testing the winds.”
Ms. Dannenfelser, whose group is supporting Mr. Trump this November, mentioned Mr. Pence would have a effectively of assist from abortion opponents ought to he resolve to return to politics in a post-Trump world.
“On the opposite aspect of this coming presidential race, there must be a intestine examine,” she mentioned. “And he could be an vital and important a part of that intestine examine.”
Tim Chapman, a senior adviser to Mr. Pence’s advocacy group, mentioned that the previous vice chairman noticed himself as “a keeper of the flame throughout a reasonably tumultuous time on the fitting.”
“Everyone seems to be enjoying the sport of exhibiting how shut they’re to Trump,” Mr. Chapman mentioned. “We don’t need to fake. Everybody is aware of the place we’re. We’re liberated in ways in which no different group is liberated.”
As Mr. Pence travels the nation, giving speeches and interviews, elevating cash, presenting himself as a possible future candidate for nationwide workplace — “I’ll maintain you posted,” he mentioned when requested if he would search the White Home once more — his subsequent chapter appears bleak, not less than by way of November.
Mr. Pence goes up towards essentially the most highly effective determine within the Republican Occasion since Ronald Reagan. As of at this time, there appears little room within the Trump world for a candidate like Mr. Pence.
“He’s completed,” Mr. Bannon mentioned. “However like all profession politicians he’s hooked on being related.”
