Hawley might be a good candidate some day. Cruz doesn't have the appeal. Cotton not so much either. Sasse not at all.
Pence did what he could reasonably do in the situation.
No, he did about the worst thing he could do.
He should have announced whatever he was going to do long in advance. That way people wouldn’t have false expectations and worked on asking state legislators.
2 days before January 6 at a rally in Georgia he implied that Congress was going to fix the fraud on January 6.