Mike Pence Biography

Mike Pence is the former Indiana governor who served one term as vice president of the United States under President Donald Trump from 2017-21.

Michael Richard Pence was born in Indiana and attended Hanover College in the same state, graduating with a history degree in 1981. He earned his J.D. from Indiana University School of Law in 1986. Pence was only 29 when he first ran for Congress, losing to Democratic Rep. Philip Sharp in 1988. (He lost to Sharp again in 1990.) In 1989 he began his own political talk radio program that was syndicated across Indiana, and when he ran again for Congress in 2000, his media popularity helped him seal the win.

Youthful and handsome, with a shock of white hair, Mike Pence was reelected five times. He served 12 years in Congress in all (2001-2013), developing a reputation as firmly conservative and not afraid of a fight. He often described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” (Roll Call said “His rhetoric has a punchiness that may fairly be labeled ‘attack dog’ in style,” and Pence once described his own radio speaking style as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”)

In 2012 he left Congress and was elected governor of Indiana, where he immediately cut taxes and eliminated the state’s inheritance tax entirely. He was preparing to run for re-election in 2016 when Donald Trump chose him as his candidate for vice president, just days before the Republican convention in July. Trump and Pence ran against Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the general election on November 8, 2016, scoring a surprising upset victory. Trump and Pence took office the following year, with Pence succeeding Joe Biden in the office of vice president.

In 2020, Donald Trump and Mike Pence again were the GOP nominees were president. They were defeated by Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who took office on January 20, 2021.