WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been a Baskin Robbins manager, the top of his class at West Point, an Army officer, a lawyer, an entrepreneur and a Kansas congressman. He’s directed the nation’s spies and sat down with dictators like Kim Jong-Un.
But if he wants to add another accomplishment to his resume — 47th President of the United States — he’ll have to be able to tell a story.
“It’s important for each of these individual candidates to be able to craft a compelling narrative based upon their the life story that American people get excited about,” said David Urban, a Republican strategist who went to West Point with Pompeo. “It’s a wide span of folks you’re going to need to appeal to and how you how that narrative is crafted and how you choose to present yourself is pretty important if you want to try to capture the widest swath possible.”
He’s begun telling that story with a book about his time working in the administration of former President Donald Trump, called “Never Give An Inch” and his subsequent book tour. The book parties and talks have taken him everywhere from the posh Metropolitan Club just a few blocks from the White House, to a World Affairs Council in Dallas, to the Presidential libraries of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in California.
This week, he’ll be back in the heartland, where he’ll speak at an event in Smithville, a suburb north of Kansas City, sponsored by the Herzog Foundation Thursday night. The Herzog family is known for being a big donor in Missouri Republican politics.
He’ll also hold an event Friday at Wichita State University, in the heart of the district where Pompeo built his aerospace business and launched his political career. He’ll be visiting Missouri and Kansas in a moment where his book is the No. 1 non-fiction bestseller in Kansas City, according to a list compiled by Rainy Day Books, and is third on The New York Times bestseller list.
If his book is any indication of Pompeo’s messaging, his campaign will lean heavily on his competitive and combative nature and his willingness to take on the nation’s foreign adversaries. It focuses largely on his experience in the Trump administration, where he served as CIA Director and secretary of State and at points, the tone of the book feels like a guy at a bar trying to show his toughness.
Pompeo has not formally launched a campaign, but has signaled his intention to run for the presidency through political visits to early primary states and has left the door open to running when asked by reporters. He did not respond to a request for an interview through his political action committee, Champion American Values PAC.
In the book, Pompeo talks about his competitive nature and how that blended with his loyalty to Trump. He said one of his favorite books as a child was the autobiography of Hall of Fame baseball manager Leo Durocher, “Nice Guys Finish Last,” a book about winning at all costs.
“I was pleased to serve with a president who shared my fixation on winning,” Pompeo wrote. “He took to heart the famous quotation “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
But it may be difficult for him to find a way to win a Republican primary where, already, much of the oxygen is being consumed by Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I don’t know what the market is for this,” said Liz Mair, a Republican strategist who’s worked on presidential campaigns for candidates like former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. “I can’t ascertain one within the Republican primary electorate, or at least not one that gets about 1%.”
In early primary polls, Pompeo has been consistently polling around 1%.
Trump is the only candidate who has formally announced his 2024 campaign, but a number of Republicans are waiting in the wings. There are those who, like Pompeo, built up their reputations in the Trump administration, like former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence. There are the Republicans who are looking to move the party away from Trump, like New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and those who helped Trump from the U.S. Senate, like Sens. Ted Cruz and Tim Scott, of Texas and South Carolina respectively.
“Yes, Trump, and DeSantis do have a lot of the attention right now,” said Kelly Arnold, who served as chairman of the Kansas Republican Party during Pompeo’s congressional tenure. “But there’s a lot of other great candidates that the Republican Party has that will likely be candidates for president that will also be able to build their own traction.”
To build his traction, Pompeo will have to continue to figure out ways to attract attention while building up a strong ground game in early primary states. While he’s already made visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he’ll have to establish himself and try to build grassroots support.
One potential source for money could be to Americans for Prosperity, the conservative organization funded by Charles Koch, who also runs the Wichita-based Koch Industries. The organization plans on backing one, non-Trump candidate in the primary instead of splitting its endorsement, according to The Washington Post.
Koch Industries was a key donor for Pompeo during his time in Congress. The $380,000 he received from the company and its employees made it his top contributor during his congressional career, according to Open Secrets.
But in South Carolina, he’ll have to compete with Haley, whose time in the Trump administration as U.N. ambassador might put her in the same lane as Pompeo, with both talking about their loyalty to Trump while touting their foreign policy expertise.
Pompeo is critical of Haley in the book, saying her decision to leave the administration meant that she was putting herself over the team.
“While she spun her exit well in the press, Haley flat-out threw in the towel after two years as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — a job that is far less important than people think, despite it sometimes being a Cabinet-level position,” Pompeo wrote.
In New Hampshire, there’s the prospect of Sununu, who is popular in the state and could help shape a Republican primary. He was coy about whether he’ll run in an interview with The Boston Globe earlier this month, but he indicated that he’ll have a say in the New Hampshire primary all the same.
“DeSantis and, and Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, these are all very good friends of mine. I respect them all,” Sununu told The Boston Globe. “But maybe with the exception of DeSantis, none of them are going anywhere. Because they keep talking to the same voters expecting some sort of different result. They’re not going after the independent voter.”
Kansans who have become familiar with Pompeo over his time in public office think he still has the chance to break out from the field. Pompeo has never run a statewide campaign, let alone a national one. He won four elections to the House of Representatives in his Wichita-based district before getting tapped to serve in Trump’s administration despite his backing of Sen. Marco Rubio in the primary.
Arnold said Pompeo’s background, with his credentials at West Point and Harvard Law School coupled with his experience running businesses and serving in the administration, will make him a formidable candidate. And he said he believes Republicans may be willing to move on from Trump.
“Most of your Republicans will support the agenda, and the policies that President Trump was able to accomplish during his time in his four years,” Arnold said. “They just may not agree with how he operated in other aspects.”
Former Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle said she thought Pompeo’s strong military and foreign affairs background might help him pick up voters, particularly if there’s a foreign crisis during the primary.
“God only knows where the next eruption is going to be around the world,” said Wagle, a Republican. “And so I think he’s a player because of his military experience and because he’s looked at as a person of inner strength.”
But, with the rise of Trump, the Republican Party has appeared more focused on domestic policy, cultivating an “America First” identity that decries immigration and pushes to bring back domestic manufacturing jobs.
“Nobody votes on foreign policy, it just never registers,” Mair said. “Unless you have something like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, right? It just doesn’t register as being that serious an issue or that much of a priority issue with hardly any voters.”
Pompeo would also have to drown out critiques of his time as secretary of State. When he left office, the The New York Times ran a headline saying he “leaves with a dubious legacy”, citing his alienation of some of the country’s allies and his reputation with career diplomats.
In his book, Pompeo leaned into his adversarial relationship with the media, calling out several reporters by name and critiquing their articles and questions. In a section about his faith — something that might help him win support among evangelical conservatives — Pompeo was critical of articles that questioned his decision to talk about it in speeches in majority Muslim countries.
Pompeo’s biggest challenge may be getting attention. With a potentially crowded primary field, Pompeo will have to find a way to break through, particularly when trying to differentiate himself from Trump, who maintains a large following
“Overcoming that celebrity is somewhat difficult sometimes,” Urban said. “But the good part is the primaries. These primaries are the great equalizers.”
