WASHINGTON _ Mike Pence does not have the star power of President Donald Trump and is not one to draw large crowds on the campaign trail. His political team has crafted a 2020 strategy that both plays to the vice president's strengths and compensates for what doesn't come naturally to Trump: shaking hands in local diners and ice cream parlors.
Pence recently completed a bus tour in Kentucky and has similar ones planned for Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin_three states his campaign strategists believe are critical to reelection and where they see the Republican politician's Midwestern roots as being most useful.
The former Indiana governor will direct his energy to states heavily populated by white, working-class voters that he and Trump must win next November to stay in office.
"The vice president can't get the same audience as the president can on his own," Marc Short, chief of staff to Pence, candidly acknowledged in an interview. "Let the president do the giant rallies, and let the vice president do a lot more of the traveling through the district, getting local press attention leading into the big event with the president."
The strategy is to complement "their styles," he said.
Trump is at his most energetic and in his element when he's facing an arena of people who waited in line for hours to listen to him speak.
Pence is at his best when he's making small talk with patrons of local restaurants, telling them anecdotes, and listening attentively to their comments, people close to him say.
"I think that the president sees and can move great crowds, and I think the vice president sees the individuals in the crowd in a really unique way and remembers them," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, an organization that advocates for anti-abortion policies and candidates.
Pence also has an ability to stay on message, which makes him an asset to the provocative president, said Joel Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency.
He pointed to the 2016 vice presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, laced into Trump and told Pence: "See if you can defend any of it."
"Ever since then, he's demonstrated an ability to defend Trump and sometimes to reframe what Trump has said to make it more palatable," Goldstein said.
Some Republicans have argued that Trump should ditch Pence for a politician who can pull in more suburban women and minority voters who may become key to reelection, depending on who Democrats choose as their presidential nominee. They say someone like Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, should be on the ticket this cycle.
Goldstein said dropping Pence would play into the narrative that Trump is unreliable and cannot be trusted.
"In 2016, Haley didn't want to have anything to do with being Trump's running mate, and Pence got selected, in part, because I think he was the most appealing of a very shallow pool," he said. "But now that has established a status quo. Pence has been loyal. He has been more supportive of Trump in his statements than I think that any vice president has ever been."
