Former Vice President Mike Pence publicly sided with 2020 Georgia poll workers on Wednesday, telling a crowd that the swing state’s election “was not stolen” as his former boss, Donald Trump, continues to claim.
“The Georgia election was not stolen and I had no right to overturn the election on Jan. 6,” Pence told a crowd at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Indianapolis.
Pence’s comments came a day after prosecutors in Georgia indicted the former president and 18 others on charges they conspired to reverse Trump’s 2020 election defeat. The indictment detailed how some poll workers were viciously pressured to support false vote fraud stories and how conspiracy theories were pushed to raise public doubts about voting machines.
Trump, who is running against Pence for the 2024 GOP nomination, has denied the charges and continues to insist the 2020 election was rigged against him.
Pence, in his speech Wednesday, cited GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s backing of the conclusion that the state’s 2020 results were accurate. Kemp on social media Tuesday said there was zero evidence supporting Trump’s claims.
“For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward — under oath — and prove anything in a court of law,” Kemp wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Trump’s claim that he will be exonerated. “Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus.”
Although Pence has contradicted some of Trump’s lies before, he’s among the majority of the 2024 Republican candidates who have failed to criticize Trump’s behavior or call out his four criminal indictments totaling 91 felony counts.