在143天里，我的工作就是跟踪前副总统迈克·彭斯在竞选活动中。
这意味着我周六在拉斯维加斯的舞厅里——不完全是历史的前排座位，但很接近——当他宣布这个消息时让观众大吃一惊他中止了2024年的竞选开始后不到五个月。
在新闻行业，我们通常会准备背景材料，用于重大突发事件，比如一个著名的死亡事件或一个候选人退出竞选。这些预写通常被称为“讣告”，即使它们是关于一场竞选的结束。比我预期的要早，是时候掸掉我的灰尘了。
但越来越多的迹象表明，彭斯即将退出共和党初选。
根据他最新的财务披露，他的竞选资金相对较少，他的民调数字从未突破两位数，根据538.
一位曾经帮助领导他的政党的政治家现在正被这些选民中的许多人所拒绝。他们与彭斯的一个主要问题是1月6日发生的事情，这似乎与他与唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的分歧相同，唐纳德·特朗普是他曾经服务的前总统，也是目前的初选领先者。
在他宣布的前几天，彭斯报道了可怕的筹款回报这促使人们将2023年第三季度与当时的威斯康星州州长斯科特·沃克2016年竞选期间的类似时刻进行比较。
三周后，沃克退出了。便士不到两便士。
“我们一直知道这将是一场艰苦的战斗，但我不后悔，”他周六说。“唯一比功亏一篑更难的事情是，如果我们从未尝试过。”
房间里是什么样子
在他抛出重磅炸弹之前，彭斯的演讲似乎与众不同。事实上，当他在对共和党犹太联盟的演讲进行到一半时，一个熟悉的想法闪过我的脑海:“另一群他没有击中的人……”
我已经开始起草给同事的摘要，就像我在彭斯之前的活动后发送的几十封邮件一样——我经常在爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州市政厅之间的出租车上打字，记录他的一举一动。
当彭斯继续在拉斯韦加斯演讲时，我把新闻笔转向了NBC新闻的萨拉·迪恩，他和我一样是一个被指派日复一日报道彭斯的竞选“嵌入者”。我想告诉她，“我们以前听过这个。”
但是我们没有。
彭斯说:“《圣经》告诉我们，天下万事皆有因。”。“在过去的六个月里，我在全国各地旅行，我来到这里是想说，我已经清楚:这不是我的时间。”
“因此，经过大量的祈祷和深思熟虑，我决定暂停我的总统竞选活动，从今天开始生效，”他继续说道。
挤满人的舞厅里传来清晰可闻的喘息声。一些与会者立即起立鼓掌。还有人掏出手机来拍。记者们面面相觑，然后低头看着他们的笔记本电脑，狂热地敲着键盘，以获取关于不再是典型的巡回演讲的突发新闻。
“我们爱你!”一名妇女喊道。“谢谢你，迈克!”我听到另一个人说。
按照惯例，彭斯的助手们提前分享了他计划中的讲话摘录，但没有迹象表明他会退出竞选。后来，活动的组织者也向我表达了他们的惊讶。
当我向美国广播公司新闻编辑室发出内部警报时，我的手在颤抖:“迈克·彭斯暂停总统竞选。”
舞台上，彭斯还在讲话。
“我将退出这场竞选，但让我向你们保证，我永远不会放弃为保守价值观而战，”他说，“我永远不会停止为选举有原则的共和党领导人进入这片土地上的每一个办公室而战。愿上帝帮助我。”
逐渐减少的人群
几个月来，我看到彭斯的工作人员努力填满他在爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州的市政厅，这是共和党提名竞争中最先投票的两个州。在他的竞选活动开始后不久，仲夏时经常有70人参加，到9月份减少到24人。
有时，他租出去的餐馆的服务员会很有礼貌地填补空位。
今年夏天，当我问彭斯什么时候可能会举办大规模集会——特朗普喜欢的那种——他的竞选主席齐普·萨尔特曼(Chip Saltsman)告诉我要耐心，他曾在2008年领导迈克·哈克比(Mike Huckabee)的竞选活动赢得爱荷华州。
“关键和策略是一次向一个选民介绍你自己，做这些小活动，做市政厅，因为他们明天要去工作，他们周日要去教堂，和他们的朋友谈论迈克·彭斯，”索特斯曼在7月份说。“随着比赛的临近，我们会朝着更大的赛事努力。”
同一天晚上，彭斯向与会者发出“只需一美元”的请求，以帮助他跨过4万名捐款人的门槛，进入第一场初选辩论阶段，鉴于他的高调，这是一个令人谦卑的请求。前新泽西州长克里斯·克里斯蒂与彭斯在同一周加入竞选，当时已经有资格参加辩论。
罕见的两党赞扬，但来自基层的批评
彭斯的竞选在这一点上是正确的:在他较小的市政厅和见面会上，选民确实有足够的机会一对一地接近他——他经常让他们很容易。
“叫我迈克，”他会说。"之后我就可以自拍了。"
民主党人和共和党人都经常感谢他做出的一个似乎严重损害了他在共和党初选中的机会的决定——当时他抵制了特朗普要求他在2021年1月6日停止选举人团认证他们失败的努力，尽管一群支持特朗普的暴徒在大楼里闹事，在某些情况下要求绞死彭斯。
在6月份的2024年启动演讲中，彭斯反思了那一天。他说，特朗普推动他推翻他们的选举失败“危及我的家人和国会大厦的每个人。”
“特朗普总统……要求我在他和宪法之间做出选择。现在，选民将面临同样的选择。我选择了宪法，我将永远如此，”彭斯说。
当时，这些是彭斯关于他对特朗普和1月6日的感受的一些最坦率的言论，他在整个竞选活动中重复了这些观点。
他可能面对的是一个不敏感的观众:过去ABC新闻/益普索民意调查发现大多数共和党人表示，他们认为特朗普关于2020年选举结果具有欺诈性的虚假说法。
尽管彭斯在1月6日的立场招致了一些人的反弹，包括在多个活动中的诘问者，但这也为他赢得了两党支持者——即使他们不会投票给他。
以新罕布什尔州的南希·瑞安为例。
当彭斯7月份在布伦特伍德的古迪·科尔烟馆停下来时，这是他作为候选人在该州首次摇摆的第一个午餐站，瑞安似乎是唯一一个等待副总统出现的选民。
“感谢你在1月6日所做的一切，”自称民主党人的瑞安告诉彭斯。
“上帝保佑，”他握着她的手回答道。
今年9月，在爱荷华州独立镇的Em's Coffee Co .，一位名叫莲娜(Lenore)的女士告诉彭斯，“你应该获得一枚奖牌。”
在这位女士向ABC新闻承认她是一名注册的民主党人之前，他告诉她，“你的话已经足够了”。
10月初，在彭斯最后一次在爱荷华州巡回演讲时，汤姆·贝克尔(Tom Becker)过来感谢他1月6日的行动，他是马蹄咖啡馆的老板，该咖啡馆靠近彭斯在悉尼举行见面会的地方。
“我真的很惊讶，”贝克尔说。“我只是想打个招呼。谢谢你所做的一切。”
但贝克尔表示，他没有投特朗普-彭斯的票，并告诉美国广播公司新闻，他是一名注册的民主党人，过去曾跨越通道投票给共和党人-只是不是在爱荷华州的党团会议上。
贝克尔说:“他让宪法继续运行，让我们的国家继续前进，所以这就是我今天在这里的原因。”
这只是三个例子:我数不清有多少次看到彭斯在1月6日受到感谢——尽管他在民调中的支持度下降了。
按照他自己的条件离开
人们通常对副总统很有礼貌——除了质问者——他对采访他的记者也很友好，随着竞选的进行，他能认出我们的面孔。在中西部的烧烤活动和博览会上，他经常转身问:“你吃了什么吗?”
彭斯最后一次接近记者是在10月14日在新罕布什尔州。当他站在后面，与几个想听他讲话的与会者一对一交谈时，房间里的人开始鱼贯而出。
在离开的时候，他向我们的小组竖起了大拇指，但没有“嘎嘎”乱叫——这是新闻业的俚语，指以更非正式的方式回答问题，通常是在自发的小组中。
星期六我们也没有得到一个gaggle。
迄今为止，彭斯一直避免对他的竞选活动进行回顾性采访。相反，他回到了印第安纳，一个他在旅途中深情地谈论的地方。
“[我的妻子]凯伦和我，我们的生活相当充实，”他10月6日在爱荷华州说，这将是他最后一次竞选活动。
尽管如此，这位前副总统可能很快会重新成为头条新闻。他是针对特朗普的四项指控之一的核心人物，这一指控与推动推翻2020年大选有关。特朗普否认所有不当行为，并辩称无罪。彭斯可能是他即将到来的审判的证人。
当8月份被问及是否会作证时，彭斯说他“没什么好隐瞒的”，并没有关闭可能性的大门。
几个月后，当他结束竞选时，他说，“这不是我的时间。”
What it was like covering Mike Pence's doomed presidential campaign: Reporter's notebook
That meant I was inside the Las Vegas ballroom on Saturday -- not quite with a front row seat to history, but close -- when he surprised the audience with the announcementthat he was suspending his 2024 bidfor the White House less than five months after it started.
In the news business, we typically prep background material that can be used for major breaking stories, like a notable death or a candidate dropping out. These prewrites are often darkly referred to as "obits," even when they are about a campaign's end. It was time to dust mine off sooner than I'd expected.
But there had been mounting signs of Pence's imminent exit from the Republican primary.
According to his latest financial disclosures, his campaign had relatively little money and his polling numbers never broke double digits,according to 538.
A politician who had once helped lead his party was now being rejected by many of those same voters. One of their main problems with Pence -- what happened on Jan. 6 -- appeared to be the same thing that divided him from Donald Trump, the former president with whom he used to serve and the current primary front-runner.
Days before his announcement, Pencehad reported dire fundraising returnsfor the third quarter of 2023 -- prompting comparisons to a similar moment during then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's 2016 campaign.
Walker dropped out three weeks later. Pence took less than two.
"We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets," he said Saturday. "The only thing that would have been harder than coming up short would have been if we'd never tried at all."
What it was like in the room
Until he dropped his bombshell, Pence's speech had seemed like any other. In fact, a familiar thought ran through my head as he reached the halfway point in his remarks to the Republican Jewish Coalition: "Another crowd where he's just not hitting ..."
I'd already started drafting a recap note to colleagues, just like dozens of others I've sent after Pence's previous events -- often typing from rental cars between town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire as I documented his every move.
As Pence kept speaking in Las Vegas, I turned in the press pen toward NBC News' Sarah Dean, who like me is a campaign "embed" assigned to cover Pence day in and day out. I wanted to tell her, "We've heard this before."
But we had not.
"The Bible tells us that there's a time for every purpose under heaven," Pence said. "Traveling across the country over the past six months, I came here to say it's become clear to me: This is not my time."
"So, after much prayer and deliberation I have decided to suspend my campaign for president, effective today," he continued.
Audible gasps were heard across the packed ballroom. Some attendees immediately rose to their feet to applaud. Others pulled out their phones to film. Reporters looked at each other and then down at their laptops, feverishly typing to get the breaking news out about what was no longer a typical stump speech.
"We love you!" one woman shouted. "Thank you, Mike!" I heard another man say.
Pence's aides had shared excerpts from his planned remarks in advance, as is standard, but there was no indication he'd be leaving the race. Later on, the event's organizers expressed their surprise to me, too.
My hands shook as I sent out an internal alert to the ABC newsroom: "MIKE PENCE SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT."
On stage, Pence was still speaking.
"I'm leaving this campaign, but let me promise you, I will never leave the fight for conservative values," he said, "and I will never stop fighting to elect principled Republican leaders to every office in the land. So help me God."
Dwindling crowds
For months, I've seen Pence staffers struggle to fill his town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote in the Republican nominating contest. What had started as regular crowds of 70 in the mid-summer, soon after his campaign launch, dwindled down to two dozen by September.
Sometimes, the wait staff at whatever restaurant he was renting out would politely fill the open seats.
When I asked in the summer when we might see Pence host a large-scale rally -- of the kind favored by Trump -- his campaign chair Chip Saltsman, who led Mike Huckabee's campaign to win Iowa in 2008, told me to be patient.
"The key and the strategy is to introduce yourself to voters one at a time, doing these small events, doing town halls, because they're gonna go to work tomorrow and they're gonna go to church on Sunday and talk to their friends about Mike Pence," Saltsman said in July. "We'll kind of work our way to bigger events as it gets closer."
That same night, Pence made a plea to attendees for "just a buck" to help him cross the 40,000-donor threshold to make the first primary debate stage, a humbling request given his high profile. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who got into the race the same week as Pence, had already qualified for the debate at that point in time.
Rare bipartisan praise but criticism from the base
Pence's campaign was right on this aspect: At his smaller town halls and meet and greets, voters did have ample opportunity to approach him one on one -- and he'd often make it easy for them.
"Call me Mike," he'd say. "I'll be available after this for selfies."
Both Democrats and Republicans regularly thanked him for a decision that seems to have seriously harmed his chances in the GOP primary -- when he resisted Trump's push for him to stop the Electoral College certification of their defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, even as a pro-Trump mob rioted through the building, in some cases calling for Pence to be hanged.
In his 2024 kickoff speech, in June, Pence reflected on that day. He said Trump's push to have him overturn their election loss "endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol."
"President Trump … demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. Now, voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution and I always will," Pence said then.
At the time, those were some of Pence's most candid remarks about how he felt about Trump and Jan. 6, and he repeated those sentiments throughout his campaign.
He likely faced an unreceptive audience: PastABC News/Ipsos polling has foundthat a majority of Republicans said they believed Trump's false claims that the 2020 results were fraudulent.
While Pence's stance on Jan. 6 earned backlash from some, including hecklers at multiple events, it also won him bipartisan supporters -- even if they weren't going to vote for him.
Take Nancy Ryan in New Hampshire.
When Pence stopped by Goody Cole's Smokehouse in Brentwood in July, his first lunch stop on his first swing in the state as a candidate, Ryan appeared to be the only voter waiting for the vice president to show up.
"Thank you for what you did on Jan. 6," Ryan, a self-described Democrat, told Pence.
"By God's grace," he replied, shaking her hand.
In September, at Em's Coffee Co. in Independence, Iowa, a woman named Lenore told Pence, "You deserve a medal."
He told her back, "Your words are medal enough," before the woman confessed to ABC News she was a registered Democrat.
And at Pence's last swing through Iowa, in early October, Tom Becker, owner of the Horseshoe Cafe close to where Pence was holding a meet and greet in Sidney, came over to thank him for his actions on Jan. 6.
"I'm truly amazed by that," Becker said. "I just wanted to say hello. Thank you for everything you've done."
But Becker said he hadn't voted for the Trump-Pence ticket and told ABC News he was a registered Democrat who had crossed the aisle to vote for Republicans in the past -- just not at the Iowa caucus.
"He kept the Constitution going and kept our country going, so that's why I'm here today," Becker said.
Those are just three examples: I can't count the times I saw Pence thanked for Jan. 6 -- even as his support in the polls faded.
Leaving on his own terms
People were often polite to the vice president -- aside from the hecklers -- and he was gracious to the reporters covering him, too, recognizing our faces as the campaign wore on. At BBQ events and fairs across the Midwest, he'd often turn and ask: "Did you get something to eat?"
The last time Pence approached the press pen was on Oct. 14 in New Hampshire. The room was filing out as he stood at the back, talking one on one with the few attendees who wanted to hear from him.
He gave our group a thumbs up on the way out but didn't "gaggle" -- journalism slang for taking questions in a more informal way, often in spontaneous groups.
We didn't get a gaggle on Saturday either.
Pence has so far avoided retrospective interviews about his campaign. Instead, he's headed back to Indiana, a place he fondly talked about on the trail.
"[My wife] Karen and I, our lives are pretty full," he said on Oct. 6 in Iowa, in what would be his last swing of the campaign.
Still, the former vice president could soon be drawn back into the headlines. He is a central figure in one of the four indictments against Trump, this one related to the push to overturn the 2020 election. Trump denies all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty. Pence could be a witness at his forthcoming trial.
When asked in August if he would testify, Pence said he had "nothing to hide" and didn't close the door on the possibility.
Just as he would months later, when he ended his campaign, he said, "This is not my time."
