On Wednesday, former vice president and ex-governor Mike Pence officially announced the Twitter that he wants to be the Republican presidential candidate for the American election next year.
It is the first time in modern times that a vice president has directly challenged his former boss, in this case Donald Trump.
Hard on Trump
On Wednesday night, Mike Pence held his first campaign rally in the state of Iowa. According to SVT’s US correspondent Fouad Youcefi, there were two things that stood out in Mike Pence’s speech.
– He said several times that he was against what happened during the storming of the Capitol. He reminded that Donald Trump tried to violate the constitution and that Pence certainly stood his ground and did not do it, he says in SVT’s Aktuell.
Strict anti-abortion
Mike Pence is also trying to profile himself as a fierce opponent of abortion, despite the fact that the majority of Americans are in favor of the right to abortion in many cases.
– Nevertheless, Pence chose to remind time and time again that he thinks abortion should be illegal in the vast majority of cases, throughout the United States, says Fouad Youcefi.
Already lost
But Mike Pence’s prospects for the Republican presidential nomination look bleak. Former President Donald Trump is still the candidate with the absolute greatest support among Republicans according to American voter surveys. Mike Pence currently has only around five percent support within the party.
– There are quite a few who believe that the race is already over for him, and for all the candidates except for Donald Trump and possibly for Ron DeSantis, says Fouad Youcefi.