Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana from 2001 to 2013.
Born in Columbus, Indiana, Pence graduated from Hanover College and Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. After losing two House bids in 1988 and 1990, he was a conservative radio and television talk show host from 1994 to 1999. He was first elected to the House in 2000, representing Indiana's 2nd district from 2001 to 2003 and 6th district from 2003 to 2013. During his time in Congress, he chaired the Republican Study Committee (2005–2007) and the House Republican Conference (2009–2011). Pence was elected governor of Indiana in 2012. As governor, Pence enacted Indiana's largest tax cut, pushed for more funding for private education initiatives, and signed multiple anti-abortion bills. He also signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which encountered resistance from moderate members of his party, the business community, and LGBT advocates. Facing backlash, Pence approved changes to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors.
In 2016, presidential nominee Trump selected Pence as his running mate in the presidential election. After they won the general election, Pence went on to serve as vice president from 2017 to 2021, chairing the National Space Council and the White House Coronavirus Task Force during his term. In 2020, Trump and Pence lost their bids for re-election to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Trump refused to concede and challenged the results. Pence, who was tasked with presiding over the certification of the U.S. Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021, faced pressure from Trump and Republican activists to block or delay certification. He declined to do so and ultimately oversaw the certification of Biden and Harris as the winners. When Congress met at the United States Capitol to certify the results, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to disrupt the process. Pence remained at the Capitol and completed the certification after order was restored.
In the aftermath of his vice presidency, Pence distanced himself from Trump, endorsing candidates in primary elections in opposition to those backed by Trump and criticizing Trump's conduct following the 2020 presidential election. In June 2023, Pence launched a presidential campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, but withdrew the campaign later that year, declining to endorse Trump in the presidential election. On May 4, 2025, Pence received the Profile in Courage Award for his conduct during the certification.
Pence was born on June 7, 1959, in Columbus, Indiana, the third son of Ann Jane "Nancy" Cawley and Edward Joseph Pence Jr., who ran a group of gas stations. His father served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and received the Bronze Star in 1953, which Pence displays in his office along with its commendation letter and a reception photograph. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother is of Irish ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Edward Joseph Pence Sr., worked in the Chicago stockyards. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, who emigrated from Dooncastle, Ireland, to the United States through Ellis Island and who became a bus driver in Chicago, Illinois. His maternal grandmother's parents were from Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland.
Pence graduated from Columbus North High School in 1977. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Hanover College in 1981, and a Juris Doctor from the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis in 1986. While at Hanover, he joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, becoming the chapter president. After graduating from Hanover, he was an admissions counselor at the college from 1981 to 1983.
In his childhood and early adulthood, Pence was a Roman Catholic and a Democrat, as was the rest of his family. He volunteered for the Bartholomew County Democratic Party in 1976 and voted for Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, and has said he was originally inspired to get involved in politics by people such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. While in college, Pence left the Catholic Church and became an evangelical, born-again Christian, to the disappointment of his mother. His political views also started shifting to the right during this time, something which Pence attributes to the "conservatism of Ronald Reagan" with which he began to identify.
Early career and congressional campaigns
After graduating from law school in 1986, Pence was an attorney in private practice. In 1988, he ran for Congress against Democratic incumbent Philip Sharp, but lost. He ran against Sharp again in 1990, quitting his job in order to work full-time in the campaign, but once again was unsuccessful. During the race, Pence used "political donations to pay the mortgage on his house, his personal credit card bill, groceries, golf tournament fees and car payments for his wife". While the spending was not illegal at the time, it reportedly undermined his campaign.
During the 1990 campaign, Pence ran a television advertisement in which an actor, dressed in a robe and headdress and speaking in a thick Middle Eastern accent, thanked his opponent, Sharp, for doing nothing to wean the United States off imported oil as chairman of a House subcommittee on energy and power. In response to criticism, Pence's campaign responded that the advertisement was not about Arabs; rather, it concerned Sharp's lack of leadership. In 1991, Pence wrote an essay published in the Indiana Policy Review in which he apologized for running negative ads against Sharp. Pence vowed to refrain from using insulting speech or running ads that belittle his adversaries. Also taking place in 1991, he became the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, a self-described free-market think tank and a member of the State Policy Network, a position he held until 1993.
Shortly after his first congressional campaign in 1988, radio station WRCR-FM in Rushville, Indiana, hired Pence to host a weekly half-hour radio show, Washington Update with Mike Pence. In 1992, Pence began hosting a daily talk show on WRCR, The Mike Pence Show, in addition to a Saturday show on WNDE in Indianapolis. Pence called himself "Rush Limbaugh on decaf" since he considered himself politically conservative while not as bombastic as Limbaugh. Beginning on April 11, 1994, Network Indiana syndicated The Mike Pence Show statewide. The program reached as many as 18 radio stations in Indiana, including WIBC in Indianapolis. From 1995, Pence also hosted a weekend public affairs TV show likewise titled The Mike Pence Show on Indianapolis TV station WNDY. Pence ended his radio and television shows in 1999 to focus on his 2000 campaign for Congress, which he eventually won.
U.S. House of Representatives (2001–2013)
Running for the U.S. House of Representatives again in 2000, he won the seat in Indiana's 2nd congressional district after six-year incumbent David M. McIntosh opted to run for governor of Indiana. The 2nd district (renumbered the 6th in 2002) comprised all or portions of 19 counties in eastern Indiana. As a new congressman, Pence adopted the slogan he had used on the radio, describing himself as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order". In 2016, House speaker Paul Ryan described Pence as a "principled conservative". While in Congress, Pence belonged to the Tea Party Caucus.
In his first year in office, Pence opposed President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, as well as President Bush's Medicare prescription drug expansion in 2003. Pence was re-elected four more times by comfortable margins. In the 2006, 2008, and 2010 House elections, he defeated Democrat Barry Welsh.