Done What Mike Pence Did’

Elise Stefanik, who many view as a top contender to be Donald rump’s 2024 pick as vice president, says she would not have certified Joe Biden’s election if she, not Mike Pence, were VP at the time.

“I would not have done what Mike Pence did,” the GOP conference chair said Thursday night when asked what she would have done as vice president on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of the rump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Pence was presiding over the certification of the Electoral College votes.

Pence refused the rump’s pleas to embrace a fringe legal theory and reject electoral votes for Biden. Some of those who stormed the Capitol that day chanted “hang Mike Pence,” and the rump reportedly said he deserved it. Pence crashed and burned in the 2024 Republican primary, with many Republican voters calling him a traitor.

Three years later, as the rump runs for president again while fighting multiple prosecutions related to his attempts to void his 2020 electoral loss, he has made personal loyalty and election denial key tests for potential 2024 running mates.

Stefanik, who joined other pro-Trump lawmakers in objecting to 2020 Biden electors from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, has gone down the MAGA rabbit hole since her election in 2014 as an establishment Republican praised by Paul Ryan as the “future of the Republican Party.”

If the rump wins the White House in 2024, his vice president will be in position to support or undermine whatever happens in the Electoral College count at the end of the Rump’s second term. 

Now considered a candidate to be chosen as the rump’s VP, Stefanik has echoed and amplified the rump’s message casting doubt on 2020 and even sowing preemptive disbelief in the integrity of this year’s election. She said earlier this month it’s too soon to say whether she’ll vote to certify the 2024 Electoral College votes.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), another potential vice presidential aspirant, declared last week he would not have certified the election in 2020 if he were vice president.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), currently campaigning with the rump as an audition for vice president, has the unfortunate history of voting to certify Biden’s victory in 2020. He said last year that the election had “cheating” but was “not stolen.” During the August 2023 GOP primary debate, he said Pence did the right thing certifying the election.

Other hopefuls in the the rump's veepstakes include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who also said last year Pence did the right thing certifying Biden’s victory but called the election “rigged.”

Kari Lake, a former news anchor, didn’t just make the rump’s 2020 election denial central to her 2022 Rump-endorsed campaign for Arizona governor. She emulated him by challenging the results when she lost. Lake has reportedly since been close to the rump (a source told People magazine last year she was at Mar-a-Lago “all the time”) and is now running for Senate while also lobbying to be VP.