Trump Veepstakes have new litmus test: Breaking with Pence over 2020

Would-be running mates for former President Trump are facing a new litmus test as they audition for a spot on the Republican ticket: whether they would have certified the 2020 election results and how they would handle certifying votes in the future.

One by one in recent weeks, officials who are on the former president’s growing list of potential running mates have been asked whether they would have acted as then-Vice President Mike Pence did in certifying the 2020 results despite Trump’s pressuring him to reject the outcome.

Most have said they would have handled the situation differently or have evaded the question entirely, a nod to the importance of loyalty to Trump, who has continued to claim the 2020 election was fraudulent or rigged despite numerous courts throwing out challenges to the results.

“Clearly it’s going to become ‘The Apprentice: Political Edition,’” one Republican strategist told The Hill.

Trump had a falling out with Pence, his former vice president and two-time running mate, over the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Trump for weeks claimed his 2020 election loss was fraudulent and urged Pence to decertify the results or reject them that day and give states more time to present pro-Trump electors.

Pence was and has continued to be adamant that the vice president has no such power to overturn or reject election results, prompting Trump to call his then-vice president “naive” and suggest he lacked the courage needed to reject votes.

With Trump placing a premium on loyalty, those looking to join Trump on the ticket in November have sought to make clear they would be willing to act for Trump where Pence did not.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who objected to certifying Pennsylvania’s election results on Jan. 6, has said she did not agree with Pence’s action and has declined to commit to accepting the 2024 results regardless of outcome. 

“I would not have done what Mike Pence did. I don’t think that was the right approach,” Stefanik told CNN last month. “I specifically stand by what I said on the House floor.’

Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership, in the same interview said she would be “proud to serve in a Trump administration, but we have a lot to do.”

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who was elected to the Senate in 2022, similarly said in February that he would have acted differently than Pence had he been vice president after the 2020 election.

“If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance told ABC News. “That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.”

Those comments drew criticism from former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who said the senator was not “fit to serve.” Cheney led the special House panel on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who has expressed a willingness to serve as Trump’s running mate, declined to say in an interview with Axios if he agreed with Pence’s decision to certify the results. But he left the door open to rejecting election results if he were Trump’s vice president in 2028.

“If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states … then no, I would not,” Donalds said.

Other contenders to be Trump’s running mate have been more evasive.

“What I’m not going to do is answer questions that are hypothetical about the past,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told CBS News in February, declining to engage on the role of a vice president in certifying election results. “The one thing we know about the future is that the former president — fortunately, he’ll be successful in 2024. He won’t be facing that situation again.”

Scott is among the front-runners to serve as Trump’s running mate, and the former president has spoken glowingly about him. The senator voted to certify the 2020 results on Jan. 6, and he said Pence did the right thing during a GOP primary debate last year.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), another former GOP presidential candidate, has similarly avoided addressing how he would handle the role of certifying elections. Trump has hinted there may be a role for Burgum in his next administration.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins repeatedly asked Burgum last week if he would have done what Pence did, but the North Dakota governor dodged the question entirely, instead calling speculation about a future Trump Cabinet spot “a distraction.”

Trump is set to clinch the Republican nomination in the coming days, and the lack of drama around the presidential primary has led to increased speculation about who he might choose as a running mate. Trump advisers have said he is unlikely to make any announcement about his vice presidential pick until closer to the Republican National Convention in mid-July.

The willingness of many potential Trump running mates to criticize or break with Pence’s handling of the 2020 election certification has not gone unnoticed among those close to the former vice president.

“Looks like these folks competing in the VP Pageant are okay with VP Kamala Harris rejecting GOP electoral votes in ‘24…Republican voters should not,” Marc Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, wrote on social media.

Pence has used the same logic to defend his action on Jan. 6.

“Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election,” Pence has said in multiple public speeches. “And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”