Woke War III: Pence & DeSantis Battle for Cancellation

Mike Pence
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Tina Nguyen
April 15, 2022

Mike Pence’s slow and grinding campaign to maybe-perhaps-possibly run for president in 2024 took a detour to the University of Virginia this week, where he gave a speech to the Reaganite student group Young Americans for Freedom. But other than winking again at his ambitions (“I’ll keep you posted,” he told a student), the actual content of his remarks—espousement of traditional conservative values, glowing praise of Zelensky, the importance of a G.O.P. House majority in the midterms, and so forth—was less notable than the manner in which his presence on campus unfolded.