For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence filed pa­per­work on Mon­day de­clar­ing his cam­paign for pres­i­dent in 2024, set­ting up a chal­lenge to his for­mer boss, Don­ald Trump, just two years af­ter their time in the White House end­ed with an in­sur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol and Pence flee­ing for his life.

Pence, the na­tion’s 48th vice pres­i­dent, will for­mal­ly launch his bid for the Re­pub­li­can nom­i­na­tion with a video and kick­off event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednes­day, which is his 64th birth­day, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with his plans. He made his can­di­da­cy of­fi­cial Mon­day with the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion.

While Trump is cur­rent­ly lead­ing the ear­ly fight for the nom­i­na­tion, with Flori­da Gov. Ron De­San­tis polling con­sis­tent­ly in sec­ond, Pence sup­port­ers see a lane for a re­li­able con­ser­v­a­tive who es­pous­es many of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s poli­cies but with­out the con­stant tu­mult.

While he fre­quent­ly lauds the ac­com­plish­ments of the “Trump-Pence ad­min­is­tra­tion,” a Pence nom­i­na­tion in many ways would be a re­turn to po­si­tions long as­so­ci­at­ed with the Re­pub­li­can es­tab­lish­ment but aban­doned as Trump re­shaped the par­ty in his im­age. Pence has warned against the grow­ing pop­ulist tide in the par­ty, and ad­vis­ers see him as the on­ly tra­di­tion­al, Rea­gan-style con­ser­v­a­tive in the race.

A staunch op­po­nent of abor­tion rights, Pence sup­ports a na­tion­al ban on the pro­ce­dure and has cam­paigned against trans­gen­der-af­firm­ing poli­cies in schools. He has ar­gued that changes to So­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Medicare, like rais­ing the age for qual­i­fi­ca­tion, should be on the ta­ble to keep the pro­grams sol­vent — which both Trump and De­San­tis have op­posed — and crit­i­cized De­San­tis for his es­ca­lat­ing feud with Dis­ney. He al­so has said the U.S. should of­fer more sup­port to Ukraine against Russ­ian ag­gres­sion, while ad­mon­ish­ing “Putin apol­o­gists” in the par­ty un­will­ing to stand up to the Russ­ian leader.

Pence, who de­scribes him­self as “a Chris­t­ian, a con­ser­v­a­tive and a Re­pub­li­can, in that or­der,” has spent months lay­ing the ground­work for an ex­pect­ed run, hold­ing events in ear­ly vot­ing states like Iowa, South Car­oli­na and New Hamp­shire, vis­it­ing church­es, de­liv­er­ing pol­i­cy speech­es and court­ing donors.

Pence’s team sees Iowa and its evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian vot­ers as crit­i­cal to his po­ten­tial path to vic­to­ry. Ad­vis­ers say he plans to cam­paign ag­gres­sive­ly in the state, hit­ting every one of its 99 coun­ties be­fore its first-in-the-na­tion cau­cus­es next year.

The cam­paign is ex­pect­ed to lean heav­i­ly on town halls and re­tail stops aimed at rein­tro­duc­ing Pence to vot­ers who on­ly know him from his time as Trump’s sec­ond-in-com­mand. Pence served for more than a decade in Con­gress and as In­di­ana’s gov­er­nor be­fore he was tapped as Trump’s run­ning mate in 2016.

As vice pres­i­dent, Pence had been an ex­ceed­ing loy­al de­fend­er of Trump un­til the days lead­ing up to Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump false­ly tried to con­vince Pence and his sup­port­ers that Pence had the pow­er to uni­lat­er­al­ly over­turn the re­sults of the 2020 elec­tion.

That day, a mob of Trump’s sup­port­ers vi­o­lent­ly stormed the U.S. Capi­tol build­ing af­ter be­ing spurred on by Trump’s lies that the 2020 elec­tion had been stolen. Many in the crowd chant­ed “Hang Mike Pence!” as Pence, his staff and his fam­i­ly ran for safe­ty, hid­ing in a Sen­ate load­ing dock.

Pence has called Trump’s ac­tions dan­ger­ous and said the coun­try is look­ing for a new brand of lead­er­ship in the 2024 elec­tion.

“I think we’ll have bet­ter choic­es,” he re­cent­ly told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press. “The Amer­i­can peo­ple want us to re­turn to the poli­cies of the Trump-Pence ad­min­is­tra­tion, but I think they want to see lead­er­ship that re­flects more of the char­ac­ter of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”

Pence has spent the 2 1/2 years since then strate­gi­cal­ly dis­tanc­ing him­self from Trump. But he faces skep­ti­cism from both an­ti-Trump vot­ers who see him as too close to the for­mer pres­i­dent, as well as Trump loy­al­ists, many of whom still blame him for fail­ing to heed Trump’s de­mands to over­turn the pair’s elec­tion de­feat, even though Pence’s role over­see­ing the count­ing of the Elec­toral Col­lege vote was pure­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al and he nev­er had the pow­er to im­pact the re­sults.

Pence joins a crowd­ed Re­pub­li­can field that in­cludes Trump, De­San­tis, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tions Am­bas­sador Nik­ki Ha­ley, U.S. Sen Tim Scott of South Car­oli­na, tech en­tre­pre­neur Vivek Ra­maswamy, and for­mer Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchin­son. For­mer New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie plans to launch his own cam­paign Tues­day evening in New Hamp­shire, and North Dako­ta Gov. Doug Bur­gum will an­nounce his bid Wednes­day in Far­go.

With Trump, a thrice-mar­ried re­al­i­ty star, fac­ing skep­ti­cism among some Re­pub­li­cans dur­ing his 2016 run, his pick of Pence as a run­ning mate as­suaged con­cerns from evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians and oth­ers that he wasn’t suf­fi­cient­ly con­ser­v­a­tive. As vice pres­i­dent, Pence re­fused to ever crit­i­cize the for­mer pres­i­dent pub­licly and of­ten played the role of emis­sary, try­ing to trans­late Trump’s un­ortho­dox rhetoric and pol­i­cy procla­ma­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the world stage.

Af­ter Trump’s le­gal ef­forts to stave off de­feat of the 2020 elec­tion were quashed by courts and state of­fi­cials, he and his team ze­roed in on Jan. 6, the date that a joint ses­sion of Con­gress would meet to for­mal­ly cer­ti­fy Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s vic­to­ry. In the weeks lead­ing up to the ses­sion, Trump en­gaged in an un­prece­dent­ed pres­sure cam­paign to con­vince Pence he had the pow­er to throw out the elec­toral votes from bat­tle­ground states won by Biden, even though he did not.

As the ri­ot was un­der­way and af­ter Pence and his fam­i­ly were rushed off the Sen­ate floor and in­to hid­ing, Trump tweet­ed, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” Video footage of the at­tack shows ri­ot­ers read­ing Trump’s words aloud and crowds break­ing in­to chants that Pence should be hanged. A makeshift gal­lows was pho­tographed out­side the Capi­tol.

Pence has said that Trump “en­dan­gered my fam­i­ly and every­one at the Capi­tol that day” and that his­to­ry will hold him ac­count­able.

De­spite his har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, Pence op­posed ef­forts to tes­ti­fy in in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Trump’s ac­tions on and in the lead-up to Jan. 6. He re­fused to ap­pear be­fore the House com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gat­ing the at­tack and fought a sub­poe­na is­sued by the spe­cial coun­sel over­see­ing nu­mer­ous Trump in­ves­ti­ga­tions, though he did even­tu­al­ly tes­ti­fy be­fore a grand ju­ry.

On­ly six for­mer U.S. vice pres­i­dents have been elect­ed to the White House, in­clud­ing Biden, who is run­ning for a sec­ond term.

NEW YORK (AP) —