The evening before, Mr. Pence cast the 2024 election as a fight between “one vision grounded in traditional Republican principles, and another vision that grasps what some think the American people want to hear.” He took repeated but indirect aim at Mr. Trump, noting that in 2022, “candidates that were focused on the past, particularly those focused on relitigating the last election, did not do well.”
On Sunday, Mr. Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who announced his campaign this month and was in Iowa a few days ago, partook in another campaign staple: the Sunday morning talk show interview.
Appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Mr. Hutchinson gave the usual answer to the question of why he was running — “because we need leadership that brings out the best of America and doesn’t appeal to our worst instincts.” Then the host, Margaret Brennan, pressed him on how he would respond to the country’s bleak parade of mass shootings.
He did not endorse any new federal legislation and expressed skepticism about whether red-flag laws — which allow the removal of guns from people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or to others — protected due process. At the same time, he urged states to make greater use of existing laws that allow the institutionalization of people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or to others.
There has been much less activity across the aisle, where President Biden is inching toward formally declaring a re-election campaign that he has already said was definite. (“We’ll announce it relatively soon,” he said on Friday.)
No one with a large support base has risen to challenge him. But he does have one official competitor, Ms. Williamson, who has been traversing New Hampshire since Friday, hitting Dover, Henniker, Keene, Lancaster and Littleton.
A second challenger, the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., plans to announce his campaign this Wednesday.
The election will be just 566 days away.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Maya King contributed reporting.
