You expect Trump to win, based on personality and performance, and I agree. But it is also true that historically, senators (and/or VPs, same difference) don’t defeat sitting presidents’ reelection bids and don’t even defeat governors in a race for an open seat (sole exception: Warren G. Harding, in a wave election). And since Trump's November opponent won’t be a governor, a Trump victory in November seems likely indeed. I worry about Bloomberg’s hostile billions, but . . .I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that Mike Pence won’t win the ’24 nomination. Sitting VP’s do tend to win presidential nominations. But it is true that in the modern era only Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan have seen their sitting VPs win election to POTUS.
So a Pence victory in ’24 would hardly be a sure thing, unless people are wishing for a third Trump term by then. But assuming continued Trump effectiveness - and given that Mr. Pence is a former governor who attained national office within 5 years of attaining statewide office - I would assume that he would run very strongly against any Democrat in ’24.
In addition, as a former talk show host Pence is qualified to handle TV well.
I don’t base any of this on history. I think we’re way beyond that. I base everything on Breitbart’s notion that politics is downstream of culture.
Pence isn’t even remotely plugged into the culture.
Pence was a *radio* talk show host.
And there is something off about Pence, where his look and sound is just too ingratiating somehow to seem real and authentic.
At best he might squeak in on Trump’s coattails for one term, but he’d never make it on his own (putting him in the Poppy Bush bucket).
Unfortunately I think the ambitions of Trump’s Manhattan liberal daughter and SIL, who just now (I mean just now: https://www.google.com/search?q=ivanka+trump&oq=ivanka+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57.2645j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) registered as Republicans, will enter Trump’s calculus.
I just don’t know how deluded and impatient Ivanka might be about her own apparent presidential ambitions.