Mike Pence sat on Wednesday in a cavernous machine store that was buzzing with exercise as he preached old-time Republican faith: the hazards of the swelling nationwide debt, the necessity to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, the perils of worth controls on pharmaceuticals and the need of projecting navy may throughout the globe.

No greater than two dozen Iowans had come to C & C Machining in Centerville to listen to the final Republican vice chairman as he pursues his social gathering’s nomination for president. And those who confirmed weren’t so positive what number of G.O.P. voters nonetheless believed in a gospel that his former operating mate, Donald J. Trump, has spent eight years rendering largely out of date.

“The old conservative Republicanism, those are my ideals,” Art Kirchoff, 53, an insurance coverage company proprietor, mentioned approvingly to clarify why he would vote for Mr. Pence within the Iowa caucuses this January. He had come on the behest of the machine store’s proprietor, Gaylon Cowan, a buddy, and, Mr. Kirchoff conceded, he wasn’t positive what number of of his type are left within the social gathering. “That’s a good question.”

Mr. Pence says typically that there isn’t a another certified to be the nominee — and extra battle examined — than him, a former House member, former Indiana governor and former vice chairman. There is, after all, a former president within the race: Mr. Trump, the person Mr. Pence stood behind and supported for 4 tumultuous years. But when Mr. Trump requested his loyal vice chairman to violate his oath of workplace, Mr. Pence says, he stood by the Constitution.

By drive of will, Mr. Pence grabbed the microphone on the first Republican major debate this month greater than anybody else onstage, speaking for 12 minutes and 37 seconds, a lot of that point dedicated to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, the day he licensed his personal defeat by the hands of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris after a pro-Trump mob had ransacked the Capitol and referred to as for his loss of life. At the talk in Milwaukee, the previous vice chairman stretched his airtime by demanding the opposite seven candidates onstage to his left and proper attest to his righteousness.

“It was a fun night,” Mr. Pence mentioned on Wednesday.

And by dint of his time within the White House, he holds actual celeb standing on the hustings. On Thursday, on the Old Threshers Reunion, a sprawling honest and farm-equipment showcase in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, he was mobbed by well-wishers.

But then there was Jamison Plank, a 25-year-old pastor, who grabbed Mr. Pence’s hand and demanded to know whether or not he would vote for Mr. Trump if the previous president was the nominee. Mr. Pence demurred, saying he was assured the query was moot, that Mr. Pence would win.

Mr. Plank was not.

“I’m worried that the Republican establishment is going to destroy Trump,” he mentioned. “I appreciate Mike Pence. I appreciate his faith. I just don’t see him winning.”

The former vice chairman’s time within the highlight on the debate didn’t elevate his place within the polls, the place he continues to languish within the low-single digits. He is much behind Mr. Trump, but additionally behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and a political newcomer, Vivek Ramaswamy, whose place on the problems — and maybe in nationwide polling averages — appears to encourage Mr. Pence on the assault.

“He’s wrong on foreign policy. He’s wrong on American leadership in the world. He’s wrong on how we get this economy moving again,” Mr. Pence mentioned on Wednesday of his 38-year-old rival, including, “I’ve been in the room in the West Wing, and I can tell you, the president doesn’t get to decide what crises he faces.”

The disaster he was referring to was the debt and Mr. Ramaswamy’s refusal to grapple with the price of Social Security and Medicare, entitlement packages groaning below the burden of the retiring Baby Boom era. But Mr. Trump has mentioned he too is not going to contact the favored social profit packages for retirees, as has Mr. DeSantis.

And these three brawlers, who’ve elevated their battles with “deep state” bureaucrats, “left-wing” socialists and “globalist” hawks far above the inexperienced eyeshade considerations of federal budgeting, have for now captured the allegiance of 75 percent of Republican major voters, leaving the extra conventional Republicans within the race like Mr. Pence combating over the crumbs.

“If they started listening to the message and not just the hoorah, maybe” conventional conservatism may rise once more, Mr. Cowan, 53, mentioned of Republican voters after Mr. Pence spoke at his manufacturing unit.

Mr. Pence likes to say he was conservative earlier than it was cool, a low-tax, small-government Republican prepared to struggle his personal social gathering. Mr. Pence’s positions have the identical throwback feel as his pleated khakis, blue blazers and light-blue broadcloth shirts. In Iowa this week, Mr. Pence railed towards the Biden administration’s landmark laws to permit Medicare to barter prescription drug costs — the identical coverage Mr. Trump endorsed, although failed to realize.

In a survey late final yr by KFF, a well being coverage analysis group, 89 % of Democrats and 77 % of Republicans mentioned they favored the plank of the Inflation Reduction Act that authorizes negotiations.

His warnings towards overspending come as firms like C & C brace for an enormous infusion of latest work funded by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure legislation, one other achievement that the Trump-Pence administration promised however didn’t safe. Mr. Cowan mentioned as soon as restore and substitute orders began rolling in from the businesses constructing new roads, bridges, tunnels and rail traces, “it’s going to help our business tremendously.”

On Thursday morning at Weaton Companies in Fairfield, Iowa, Cory Westphal, an govt at Dexter Laundry, an industrial washer and dryer maker, fretted that aggressive union negotiators may drive up wages and labor prices. Mr. Pence answered that he minimize the company earnings tax fee to fifteen %, from 21 %.

Beyond the problems is a extra existential query dogging Mr. Pence’s candidacy: If a majority — or at the least a robust plurality — of Republican major voters consider the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, how can the person who licensed it safe their help? Mr. Pence has tried to show the legal responsibility of his certification into an asset, a profile in braveness on the fateful day of Jan. 6, 2021.

It works for some.

“Everything he went through with Trump, I just admire that he did the right thing,” Julie Vantiger Hicks, 58, mentioned after getting her image with Mr. Pence at Threshers Reunion. “He’s an admirable man.”

But Mr. Pence was hardly outspoken among the many few Republican leaders within the weeks and months earlier than and after the assault on the Capitol who tried to dispel the conspiracy theories across the election that proceed to divide the nation.

“My objective — once the violence was quelled, the Congress reconvened and finished our work under the Constitution of the United States, and after the president denounced the riot and committed to a peaceful transfer of power — was to see to that orderly transition,” Mr. Pence answered when requested if he may have carried out extra to go off the division that he now faces.