As vice president, Pence chaired the National Space Council following its reestablishment in 2017 as well as the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which was established in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[8] 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.

[18] He volunteered for the Bartholomew County Democratic Party in 1976 and voted for Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election,[19][11] and has said he was originally inspired to get involved in politics by people such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.[19] While in college, Pence left the Catholic Church and became an evangelical, born-again Christian, to the disappointment of his mother.

[22] 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".

[23] 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.

[78] Carrier Corp. and United Technologies Electronic Controls (UTEC) announced in 2016 that they would be closing two facilities in Indiana, sending 2,100 jobs to Mexico; the Trump campaign criticized the moves[79] and Pence expressed "deep disappointment".

[99][100] Although the plan was initially defeated, Pence successfully managed to revive it, "getting Indiana off the list of just 10 states that spent no direct funds to help poor children attend preschool".

[99][100] In a televised interview appearance with Chris Matthews, Pence advocated for putting creationism on a par with science in public schools, accepting creationist beliefs as factual, and thus teaching the controversy over evolution and natural selection, and regarding the age of the Earth, and letting children decide for themselves what to believe.

[147] Pence denied the law permitted discrimination and wrote in a March 31, 2015 Wall Street Journal op-ed, "If I saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple, I wouldn't eat there anymore.

[151][152][153][154] The law was described as "exceptional for its breadth"; if implemented, it would have made Indiana "the first state to have a blanket ban on abortions based solely on race, sex or suspected disabilities, including evidence of Down syndrome".

[175] Donald Trump considered naming Pence as his vice presidential running mate along with other finalists including New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

[182][183][184] Immediately after the announcement, Pence said he was "very supportive of Donald Trump's call to temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States".

[214] On February 7, 2017, Pence, in his dual constitutional role as president of the United States Senate made the first ever tie-breaking vote to confirm a Cabinet member.

[224][225] Pence ended his trip with stops in Sydney, Australia (where, after meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, he said the U.S. "intends to honor" a U.S.–Australia refugee resettlement agreement),[226] Oahu, Hawaii, and American Samoa.

Traditionally, the president delivers the address at Notre Dame in his inaugural year, but in 2017 Pence was invited instead when Trump decided to speak at Liberty University.

Democratic representative Adam Schiff (CA-28) questioned how much taxpayer's money was used to fund Pence's actions,[235] and CNN later estimated that the total cost of his eight hours of travel on Air Force Two to attend the game was about $242,500, not including ground transportation and security.

[249][250] Talks broke down later that month following comments made by Pence and Trump, comparing the situation to events in Libya seven years previous, despite their voluntary disarmament of nuclear weapons in 2003.

[252] On May 24, Trump abruptly called off the summit with Pence in attendance,[251] only for him to change his mind a day later,[253] later announcing that it would still be scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore.

[256] In September 2019, Pence attended official meetings with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar in Dublin, Ireland but stayed at President Trump's resort in Doonbeg, 180 miles (290 km) away.

Pence later told the press that he did not mention 2020 presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden to Zelensky, but raised issues regarding Ukrainian corruption.

"[265] On October 3, Pence stated, "My predecessor had a son who was paid $50,000 a month to be on a Ukrainian board at the time that Vice President Biden was leading the Obama administration's efforts in Ukraine, I think [that] is worth looking into.

"[266] Pence defended Trump's decision in January 2020 to assassinate the Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qasem Soleimani, promoting conspiracy theories that supposedly linked the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States to Iran.

[286][287][288] On October 7, 2020, Pence participated in a debate with Kamala Harris that was held by USA Today in Salt Lake City, Utah, and moderated by Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of the newspaper.

The debate was held with adaptations designed to avoid contagion of the COVID-19 virus given that the vice president had been in close contact with people who had been infected at a recent event at the White House.

[306] On January 6, 2021, the day on which a joint session of Congress met to count and certify the results of the Electoral College for the 2020 presidential election, Trump held a rally at which he urged listeners to go to the Capitol and repeatedly expressed the hope that Pence would "do the right thing".

[333] Since leaving the vice presidency, Pence has distanced himself from Trump's attempts to cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election and made high-profile speeches in early nominating states.

[340] Ahead of the RNC in 2024, Pence released a statement condemning the new GOP stance on abortion, which echoed Trump's position that the issue should be determined by individual states.

[360] In September 2024, Pence began teaching seminar and lecture courses in political science at Grove City College after being named its first Distinguished Fellow for Faith and Public Life.

[361][362] On January 16, 2025, speaking in Hong Kong, Pence urged President-elect Trump to avert a nuclear arms race by continuing to support an independent Taiwan as a key Asian ally.

[371] In 2018, Pence's oldest brother, Greg, entered and won the political race to represent Indiana's 6th congressional district in Congress (the seat previously held by Mike).