The vice-pres­i­dent, a key link with white evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers, is also a cham­pi­on debater unlike­ly to be fazed by Kamala Har­risT­wo green trac­tors were mount­ed on the podi­um. Beneath “Farm­ers & Ranch­ers for Trump” signs, the seat­ed audi­ence wore “Trump 2020” cam­paign regalia. They warmed up with The Best, YMCA and oth­er songs famil­iar from Don­ald Trump’s cam­paign rallies.But when the head­line speak­er walked out at the Iowa State Fair­grounds in Des Moines, it was not the US pres­i­dent. Instead his deputy, Mike Pence, wear­ing an open-col­lar red checked shirt under his suit jack­et, took cen­tre stage and let rip against his new Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­site num­ber, Kamala Har­ris of California.“Senator Har­ris said she would change the dietary guide­lines in this coun­try to reduce the amount of red meat Amer­i­cans can eat,” Pence said, elic­it­ing boos. “Well, I’ve got some red meat for you. We’re not going to let Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris cut America’s meat!”Pence was a cru­cial bridge to Repub­li­cans scep­ti­cal of Trump in 2016. With the pres­i­dent endur­ing mis­er­able poll num­bers and starved of the polit­i­cal oxy­gen of block­buster cam­paign ral­lies, he now arguably has a big­ger role than ever to play in shoring up his boss’s social­ly con­ser­v­a­tive base – espe­cial­ly white Chris­t­ian evan­gel­i­cals, some of whom find their trust in Trump wear­ing thin.Pence, 61, has been clock­ing up air miles to swing states, speak­ing to gath­er­ings of sup­port­ers and blur­ring the line between gov­ern­ing and elec­tion cam­paign­ing. In Flori­da he spoke at a Bap­tist church about “the impor­tance of life”, push­ing a hard­line anti-abor­tion mes­sage, and toured a preg­nan­cy cen­tre with his daugh­ter, Charlotte.Earlier this week he head­lined a “Cops for Trump” event and “Lat­ter-day Saints for Trump” coali­tion launch in Ari­zona, while his wife, Karen, vis­it­ed a “mil­i­tary spouse owned busi­ness” in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na, to high­light the cause of sui­cide prevention.Pence has also been on air, defend­ing the pres­i­dent and scor­ing par­ti­san points. On Fox News he blamed some of New York’s pan­dem­ic death toll on “poor deci­sions” by the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor, Andrew Cuo­mo, while on the Chris­t­ian Broad­cast­ing Net­work, he said the supreme court chief jus­tice, John Roberts, had been “a dis­ap­point­ment to conservatives”.Trump, mean­while, has been most­ly trapped inside the gild­ed cage of the White House, deliv­er­ing press brief­in­gs in the dog days of sum­mer that have prompt­ed crit­ics to sug­gest his heart is not in it. Jour­nal­ist Bri­an Karem tweet­ed about one: “Today I saw a man with low ener­gy, befud­dled and lumbering.”Michael D’Antonio, a polit­i­cal author and com­men­ta­tor, said: “The ral­lies are a big loss because he is a vaude­vil­lian and if he can’t per­form, what does he do? He’s such a good show­man that it must be killing him to not be out on the cam­paign trail.”In a sign of the frus­tra­tion, the Trump cam­paign on Fri­day announced that the pres­i­dent will stage “mini-ral­lies” in Min­neso­ta, Wis­con­sin and Ari­zona as counter-pro­gram­ming to next week’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic nation­al con­ven­tion. But Pence will also head to Wis­con­sin on Wednes­day, draw­ing a point­ed con­trast with Biden, who decid­ed against deliv­er­ing his accep­tance speech there as orig­i­nal­ly planned.Pence is expect­ed to con­tin­ue plug­ging away in his effort to keep waver­ing con­ser­v­a­tives in line, remind­ing them that Trump is fun­da­men­tal­ly reshap­ing the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry with more than 200 appoint­ments so far. And where­as the president’s pho­to op with a Bible out­side a his­toric Wash­ing­ton DC church in June struck some evan­gel­i­cals as a crude par­o­dy of their faith, Pence – whose trade­mark line is “I’m a Chris­t­ian, a con­ser­v­a­tive and a Repub­li­can, in that order,” – is per­ceived as authentic.Mike Mur­phy, a Repub­li­can fundrais­er and busi­ness­man in Pence’s home state of Indi­ana, said: “He’s still a dar­ling of the evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty. The good thing about Pence is that he not only thinks like them but he lives like them. He’s not Trump and I think that’s one of the rea­sons that he pro­vides some val­ue to Trump.”Pence helps focus minds not on what Trump says, includ­ing his fum­bling attempts to quote the Bible, but on what he does. Mur­phy added: “To the extent that Pence can get out to the right crowds and remind them of the things that Trump has done that have been good for evan­gel­i­cals, like the con­ser­v­a­tive judi­cial appoint­ments, then he just dou­bles Trump’s reach.“He dou­bles the pos­i­tive media atten­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the mid­west and in some of the bat­tle­ground states, cer­tain­ly ones like Ohio and Flori­da. So I think he’s a def­i­nite attribute that appeals to a part of the Repub­li­can base that maybe Trump doesn’t always appeal to.”A for­mer talk radio host and Indi­ana gov­er­nor, Pence will come face to face with Har­ris in a vice-pres­i­den­tial debate in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 7 Octo­ber. In Ari­zona this week, Pence said: “So my mes­sage to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for vice-pres­i­dent: con­grat­u­la­tions. I’ll see you in Salt Lake City!”Murphy said: “You prob­a­bly couldn’t have a more stark con­trast between Kamala Har­ris and Mike Pence. I assume that she will attack him for being pro-life and anti-woman but he’ll be extreme­ly well pre­pared and calm. Very few peo­ple know that Mike Pence was a nation­al debat­ing cham­pi­on in col­lege and he will not be intimidated.“He’s not going to attack her per­son­al­ly or call her names or any­thing like that because that’s not what he does. But he will be for­mi­da­ble and any­body who thinks he’ll be a pushover, because peo­ple like to think he’s a syco­phant for Trump, will be sur­prised at his abil­i­ties as a debater.”Nevertheless, many observers are rel­ish­ing the prospect of Har­ris, a legal pros­e­cu­tor who has grilled Trump allies dur­ing con­gres­sion­al hear­ings, putting Pence to the sword.D’Antonio, whose books include The Shad­ow Pres­i­dent: The Truth About Mike Pence and The Hunt­ing of Hillary: The Forty-Year Cam­paign to Destroy Hillary Clin­ton, said: “There’s part of me that wants to say that she would eat Pence alive at the debate. She’s so much bet­ter-read and more expe­ri­enced and more com­mand­ing as a per­son­al­i­ty, but she’ll have the gen­der issue to navigate.“To me, she seems far more pres­i­den­tial than Mike. If you were to look at her and say, who could take over, I think peo­ple would have much more con­fi­dence in her. But I obvi­ous­ly can’t get into the head of the 35% of peo­ple who are locked into Trump and nev­er will be dis­lodged. It’s an amaz­ing thing how peo­ple are so com­mit­ted to him. There’s noth­ing he can do that would shake them loose.”Pence is also chair of the White House coro­n­avirus task­force. This week he led a dis­cus­sion with state gov­er­nors and joined Trump in an event focused on reopen­ing schools. Yet with the US death toll above 160,000 and cas­es top­ping 5m, he has some­how avoid­ed becom­ing a light­ning rod for crit­i­cism and remains in con­tention for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion in 2024.D’Antonio added: “He’s real­ly good at leav­ing the room at the right moment and very good at not being noticed. You’ve got to think, for some­one to sur­vive with Trump this long, he has got to have incred­i­ble anten­nae. His pro­file is per­fect for Trump’s need right now and I think that Trump would pay a price for dump­ing him. So the two of them can’t afford a divorce and I’m sure there’s a lot of thought being giv­en to how to use Mike most effectively.”