He has been President Donald Trump’s most loyal soldier, dutifully backing the unpredictable leader through one chaotic situation after another.
Now Vice President Mike Pence finds himself in the most precarious position of his tenure as he prepares to preside over Wednesday’s congressional tally of Electoral College votes, the last front in Trump’s futile attempts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the November election.
Seated on the House of Representatives’ rostrum, Pence will bear witness to the formalisation of Trump’s — and his own — election defeat, as tellers from the House and Senate record states’ electoral votes.
At the end of the count, it will be his job to announce who has won the majority of votes for both president and vice president.
But Pence, whose proscribed role is largely pro forma, is under intense pressure from the president and legions of supporters who want the vice president to use the moment to overturn the will of the voters in a handful of critical battleground states.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,” Trump said at a rally Monday night in Georgia for candidates in two Senate runoff elections.
“Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much,” Trump added, drawing laughs. He said Pence was “going to have a lot to say about it. And you know one thing with him, you’re going to get straight shots. He’s going to call it straight.”
Pence has spent hours huddling with the president, staff and the Senate parliamentarian. His office declined to discuss his plans heading into Wednesday’s count. But people close to the vice president stressed his respect for institutions and said they expect him to act in accordance with the law and hew to the Constitution.
“I think he will approach this as a constitutionalist, basically, and say, ‘What’s my role in the Constitution as president of the Senate?” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth and a Pence friend.