Mike Pence didn’t endorse Kamala Harris for president, says he isn’t endorsing Donald Trump either

The lack of an endorsement for one candidate for president is not necessarily an endorsement for that candidate’s opponent.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who briefly ran for the Republican nomination before dropping out of the race in October, has publicly said several times he will not endorse former President Donald Trump.

But some social media posts are claiming that Pence has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

"Mike Pence endorsed Kamala Harris," said sticker text on a July 26 TikTok video. "This man is a honest man. God Bless U!!"

We found other social media posts making the same claim.

TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

We found no public statements or news articles about Pence endorsing Harris in a search of his social media feeds, Google News and the Nexis news database. That’s because it didn’t happen, said Alison Holcomb, a spokesperson for Advancing American Freedom, a conservative advocacy organization Pence founded.

The claim is "absolutely false. He has not endorsed Kamala Harris, and has no plans to do so," Holcomb said.

Pence on his X account reposted at least three X posts from Advancing American Freedom that directly criticized Harris since Biden dropped out of the race. One of the X posts said, "‘More taxes, more regulation’ sums up the Biden-Harris administration. @KamalaHarris owns this record."

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X posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in Social media posts

Photo shows people lined up outside Madison Square Garden before an Oct. 27 rally by former President Donald Trump.

Pence has said he will not endorse Trump for president. He said in a March 15 interview on Fox News that "it should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," citing several differences beyond his "constitutional duties" Jan. 6, 2021. Those included Trump’s position on confronting the national debt, the sanctity of life and forcing a sale of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.

Pence said then, however, that he will focus on talking about a broad, mainstream conservative agenda and that he would not vote for President Joe Biden, who then was running for reelection.

"Like most Americans I’m going to keep my vote to myself," Pence said. "I would never vote for Joe Biden, but how I vote when that curtain closes, that’ll be for me."

He reiterated his reasons for not endorsing Trump in a July 25 episode of the "Indiana 250 Off the Record" podcast. The interview was recorded before Biden dropped out of the race July 21 because he expressed hope that Biden would drop out after his poor debate performance. Pence again did not say who he would vote for. Pence later praised Biden’s decision to drop out in a July 22 X post.

In a July 24 discussion at the Fund for American Studies Summer Law Fellows closing ceremony, Pence did not discuss Harris directly, but criticized her for not attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 24 address to Congress.

Pence discussed his decision to fulfill his duties in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, and said: "There were some in a well-meaning way say I might choose to do what our vice president did today and that was have somebody else fill in for them in a joint session of Congress."

An audience member asked Pence what advice he had for getting power out of Washington, D.C., and back to state and local governments.

"Vote Republican," Pence replied.

We found no evidence that Pence has publicly endorsed Harris for president and a spokesperson for an organization Pence founded said he doesn’t plan to endorse her. We rate the claim False.