Former Vice President Mike Pence says he has not closed the door on a 2028 presidential campaign, telling Fox News Digital that people around the country have reached out urging him to consider another run.
“We’ve been hearing from a lot of people around the country. I’ve been very humbled by that,” Pence said in his first interview since the 2026 midterms, in which Republicans lost badly, with Democrats winning a large House majority and retaking the Senate.
Pence gave no timeline for deciding whether to run again. He had said in September at an event at the Economic Club of Washington that he had “no plans” to seek the presidency or any other elected office in 2028.
He campaigned unsuccessfully for the 2024 Republican nomination before dropping out.
A warning to the party
Pence argued Republicans risk repeating their midterm losses unless they return to what he describes as the party’s traditional conservative principles. “The most important thing is that we win the presidency in 2028. And to do that, I think it will be essential that we focus first on what we’re for before we focus on who we’re for,” he said.
“The truth is if, if we don’t return the Republican Party to the principles of a strong defense, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the right to life, it won’t matter who we nominate in 2028,” Pence said.
Pence, whose policy and advocacy group Advancing American Freedom has grown substantially over the past year, said he intends to keep “advocating that broad mainstream conservative agenda that’s defined the Republican Party for the last 50 years.”
He pointed to President Donald Trump’s second-term shift toward a more populist agenda as part of what he believes drove the midterm defeat, saying “this version of Republicanism was just rejected by the American people” in what he called “the wreckage of the 2026 midterm elections.”
White House pushes back
White House Spokesman Davis Ingle responded to Pence’s comments, telling Fox News Digital: “Mike Pence’s total and complete lack of courage caused untold damage to our great country. If Republican voters cared what Mike Pence had to say, he wouldn’t have had to drop out of the presidential race months before the Iowa caucuses.”
On the party’s next generation
Asked whether he might back Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio if either seeks the 2028 nomination, Pence declined to name a preference. “What I’m gonna be looking for is men and women who embrace that historic traditional conservative agenda of the Republican Party,” he said.
He added that “there’s a lot of folks on the populist right that suggest that people that hew to that old Reagan tradition don’t know what time it is, and I think the midterm elections have given a verdict on their approach to Republicanism.”
“I don’t know what the future holds, but all of my energies, all of my focus and my calling now is to be a champion and an advocate for the conservative principles that have defined our party, led us to our greatest successes, and always made America strong and prosperous and free,” Pence said.
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