After the 2012 presidential election, Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, conducted what came to be called an autopsy. The objective of the autopsy was to try to discover how the Republican party could do a better job of reaching out to African Americans, Hispanics and women. Then along came Donald Trump and the outreach effort was effectively destroyed. Not only has Donald Trump vowed to deport the estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., but he has depicted as criminals those Mexicans wanting to come to the United States. He is a harsh critic of Black Lives Matter and his unconditional support of law enforcement officers drives away the many African Americans who have received discriminatory treatment at the hands of law enforcement officers. Moreover, Trump has not proposed programs that might make the lives of minorities better. Trump's many derogatory comments about women; claims that he has engaged in sexual harassment of women; and his conversion to an anti-choice position on abortion have all contributed to the latest polling that Hillary Clinton has a 23 percentage lead on him for the upcoming general election.
When Donald Trump picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate, the general media reaction was that Pence would help him with conservative voters and ease concerns about Trump among what has come to be called the Republican Establishment. Perhaps Pence has helped Trump in the ways described above; however, has he helped in the outreach effort? If we assume that Republican women are much more anti-choice than Democratic women and those women who style themselves Independents are also more pro-choice, than perhaps Pence has hurt, rather than helped the Trump/Pence ticket.
The most recent polls I have seen show that Trump is receiving a decidedly lower percentage of support from Republican women than either John McCain or Mitt Romney. Pence's record in Congress and in the governor's chair in Indiana will hardly endear the Republican ticket to pro-choice women. While in the U.S.House of Representatives, Mike Pence voted to give personhood rights to embryos and cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. He famously or infamously said that mothers with outside jobs will lead to "stunted emotional growth" for their children. For those women who want equal treatment for women in military service, Mike Pence doesn't want a combat role for women.
Another turn-off for Democratic women, in particular, might be that while in Congress, Pence threatened to block Katrina funding unless it was offset by cuts to Medicare, the National School Lunch Program and PBS.
Turning now to the matter of how compatible are Trump and Pence on issues, there were and still are wide differences between the two:
*Pence was a critic of Trump's anti-Muslim ban but has changed his position to align with Trump.
*Pence was never a proponent of torture but now will go beyond waterboarding.
*Pence voted for all, or almost all, free trade treaties that came up for a vote in Congress.
*Pence voted for the AUMF in 2003 but Trump has given him a pass on it.
*Pence initially signed a bill to allow services to be withheld from L.G.B.T. people based on a moral or religious belief but resubmitted the matter to the state legislature after a firestorm of criticism broke out. Trump was once okay with allowing trans persons to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender choice but now wants to leave the matter up to the states.
*Trump once didn't consider John McCain to be a war hero; however in a clumsy back-and-forth exchange in the 60 Minutes interview, he gave Pence permission to say he respects McCain.
There have been instances during the campaign when Pence has tried to soften or reword something Trump has said, but they have tried to avoid direct contradictions of one another.
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