Mike Pence Faces a Crash and Burn Moment

Against a field of candidates for president that includes a small-state governor and a Bitcoin-loving mayor, almost nobody at summer's start would have predicted a former vice president of the United States would be sitting at home during his party's first debate for president.

Unless things turn around quickly, presidential hopeful Mike Pence could soon surprise a lot of people.

With fewer than three weeks until the first debate between GOP presidential hopefuls in Milwaukee, Pence has so far failed to meet the criteria he needs to qualify. While Pence has met the polling requirements to debate with roughly 4 percent nationally, according to numbers compiled by FiveThirtyEight, the former VP has so far failed to achieve a Republican National Committee-imposed requirement of 40,000 unique donors to his campaign since initiating his campaign in early June, including at least 200 donors from 20 different states.

Where other candidates—North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, biopharma executive Vivek Ramaswamy, and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez—have brought themselves closer to the debate stage by offering donors incentives in efforts to "buy their way" onto the stage like $20 gift cards and sweepstakes for a free year of college tuition, Pence has so far refused to follow suit, telling news website Semafor over the weekend he would not be resorting to so-called "gimmicks" to have his platform heard.

"Yeah, we're not doing kickbacks. We're not doing gift cards. We're not even giving out soccer tickets," he told the outlet. "We're just asking people for support, and it's rolling in."

Just not quickly enough. By Pence's own admission, his campaign is currently on pace to meet the criteria for the RNC's second debate—the rules of which have not yet been made public—before he meets the current donor requirement.

"I'm confident that we'll meet the qualifications," he told Semafor. "With the pace we're going I actually think we may meet the threshold to qualify for the second debate before we arrive at the first one. But, you know, I'm someone that just believes in going out and telling your story, and people around the country have been stepping up. I also recognize that other candidates had significantly more time than we've had. We announced on June 7, but we're confident we'll be there."

Currently, available numbers suggest otherwise.

According to campaign finance reports made public earlier this month, Pence's campaign raised a paltry $1.2 million nationwide from individual donors during the second quarter of 2023, a number lower than that raised by longshot candidates like Burgum, Ramaswamy and Donald Trump critic Chris Christie during the same period. However, speaking to reporters over the weekend, Pence predicted the campaign was "maybe a couple of weeks away, based on the pace of things," from reaching the threshold of 40,000 unique donors he needed to qualify for the debate stage.

Polls, meanwhile, have shown Pence largely failing to gather momentum even in evangelical strongholds like Iowa amid his public unwillingness to attack his former president, a foreign policy stance toward Ukraine aid out-of-step with a large swath of Republican voters, and a platform built on his support for a nationwide abortion ban—a policy that has proven unpopular with most voters outside the Republican base.

Interviewed by Fox News's John Roberts last Thursday, Pence was even forced to dodge a question pondering the continued viability of his campaign, declining to directly respond to a question about whether he would drop out of the race if he failed to qualify for the debate stage.

"I'm going to be on the debate stage, John, I gotta tell you," he said on the network. "There may be some people that are wishing we're not there, but I guarantee you."

Newsweek has reached out to Pence's campaign via email for comment.