A group of Republican lawmakers reportedly encouraged former Vice President Mike Pence to seek the party's 2024 presidential nomination in a semi-private meeting Wednesday, while praising Pence for upholding the U.S. Constitution leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 unrest at the Capitol.
And according to Axios, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was among the most vocal of Pence's supporters at the meeting, saying, "I just want to say thank you for defending our Constitution. I'm happy to shout it from Mar-A-Lago to Bedminster ... I just want you to know how grateful we are."
The first part of Roy's reported quote was a clear reference to former President Donald Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and his permanent home in Florida, the Mar-A-Lago resort.
However, it's more difficult to discern the full meaning of Roy's "grateful" quote, in terms of whether he believes that Trump legitimately lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, or if Roy thinks that Pence would be a stronger 2024 presidential candidate than Trump.
A recent Morning Consult poll from July 12, via USPresidentialElectionNews.com, has former President Trump at 52% in a Republican primary poll for 2024, easily outdoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (21%), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (3%), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (2%), and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney (1%).
And for the Siena College/New York Times poll from July 7, Trump also has a commanding lead at 49%, compared to DeSantis (25%), Cruz (7%), Haley (6%), and Pence (6%).
According to Yahoo, Pence's meeting with the Republican Study Committee was his first Capitol visit since leaving office with then-President Trump in January 2021.
"People thanked [VP Pence] for his courage and doing the right thing," Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said to Politico on Wednesday.
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