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Former Vice President Mike Pence's fame has its benefits should he choose to pursue any presidential ambitions. But it also comes with downsides.

Pence has long been touted as a potential 2024 candidate and after a period of quiet, he looks to be reemerging into the public eye, fuelling more speculation of a bid for the White House.

According to YouGov Ratings, he is the fourth most famous Republican, per data collected between October and December last year.

Such name recognition raises him above potential competitors, except former President Donald Trump should he choose to run.

But it also means people have likely made their minds up on him already.

"Fame is usually an asset rather than a liability, as well-known candidates benefit from name recognition and typically garner more media coverage," Julie Norman, lecturer in politics and international relations at University College London and deputy director of its Center on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek.

"Pence's challenge will be reframing the narrative about what he is most famous for among the Republican base...to overcome the perception among Trump loyalists that he somehow betrayed the former President on January 6, and underscore his steadfast loyalty over the previous four years, while also more stridently communicating his own conservative agenda."

While Pence will need to shape the narrative, David Brockington, lecturer in politics and social science methods at the University of Plymouth, told Newsweek that views of the former vice president are likely set among Republicans.

"Perceptions of Pence will be crystallized within the Republican Party's primary electorate," Brockington said.

"To the conspiracy theorists among them, that buy into Trump's Big Lie, Pence is a traitor and will never have their support, so he's lost anywhere from a third to half of the primary vote right there.

"But, to the declining, more sensible wing of the party, Pence's image is tarnished as being part of the Trump administration, and a loyal lieutenant until the final week or two. He's boxed in."

Jon Herbert, senior lecturer in the school of social, political and global studies at Keele University and a co-author of The Ordinary Presidency of Donald J. Trump, told Newsweek Pence's position would ordinarily give him an advantage, but also stressed the impact Trump could have on his chances.

"Under normal circumstances, Pence would be in the jump seat for the nomination in 2024 as the party's last Vice President," Herbert said. "It's hard for other candidates to establish the kind of name recognition he has."

Pence's connections for fundraising, as well as with party and evangelical networks, would also be hard to rival, Herbert noted. But he said the "Trump factor" would be central moving forward.

Trump running would block Pence. And even if Trump opts not to run, his stance on Pence's candidacy or potential endorsement of someone else would impact his former VP's chances.

Trump attacked Pence on Twitter for his refusal to try to block the counting of certain Electoral College votes in January. His forgiveness of Pence could play a factor for him down the line.

However, Herbert said Trump's endorsement might not be as crucial as people think.

"There's not that much evidence so far that the Trump mystique is transferable and it's a perennial problem for populists: Movements initiated through an individual's appeal are hard to maintain if the individual isn't running for office," Herbert said.

"The interesting scenario is if Trump didn't run, but is unwilling to sacrifice the limelight.

"Seeing the opportunity to grab attention, Trump sucks all the oxygen out of the contest, as he did in 2016. That, oddly, would help Pence as he would already hold the advantage in name recognition with opponents less able to establish it."

A GOP strategist, who asked not to be named, told Newsweek that Pence will find it hard to "find a lane to run in."

"He was supposed to be the successor to Trump. But after four years of loyalty, Trump cast him aside in the wake of January 6th. He, perhaps more than anyone, has been politically cut off at the knees by Trump," they said.

A source close to Pence told Newsweek the former vice president has connections to a range of supporters.

"There is no other Republican that has bona fides with both the Make America Great Again group of votersthe former Vice President championed President Trump's agenda and served loyally for all four yearsand the traditional Conservative wing of the party," they said.

Recent polling has put Pence as one of the frontrunners for the 2024 GOP nomination should Trump not run. Much attention has been paid to who Trump might support should he not make a pitch himself.

Trump listed off Republicans who he sees as the GOP's future in a podcast interview last month. Pence was not mentioned among them.

However, Trump advisor Jason Miller told the Associated Press it "was not an exclusive list." Reports of a rift between Pence and Trump were also downplayed in February after speculation over Pence's absence from the CPAC lineup.

Newsweek has contacted Pence's office for comment.

Update 04/01/2021: This page has been updated with comment from a source close to former Vice President Mike Pence.

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Mike Pence's Fame Is Both His 2024 Gift and Curse - Newsweek

Former Vice President Mike Pence held back tears as he bade an emotional farewell to his previous office and re-entered private life after arriving back home in Indiana.

Speaking at a welcome rally for the ex-VP upon his arrival on Air Force Two in his hometown of Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, Pence repeatedly paused to collect himself as he thanked those who supported him in his time in public office.

While thanking those who attended his homecoming at the outset of his remarks, Pences voice quivered as he told the crowd, It is great to be back home again.

Pence, who was taken to Indiana directly from Wednesdays inauguration, went on to congratulate President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on their swearing-in before turning his attention to former President Donald Trump.

Pences relationship with Trump soured in recent months, with issues coming to a head during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

The Electoral Collegewent 306-232 for Biden, but Trump alleged that widespread fraud had tipped the results in swing states.

Courts rejected those claims, and Trump refused to concede, though in the aftermath of the riots, he pledged a peaceful transition of power.

For his part, Pence faced considerable pushback from Trump for declining to challenge certain swing-state electoral votes to turn the election in their favor in his capacity as president of the Senate.

Even as the riots flared, Trump took to Twitter to complain that the veep didnt have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.

The entire incident brought their relationship to a head, with Pence reportedly leaving furious at the then-presidents behavior.

Despite that, Pence had nothing but kind words for his former boss after touching down in the Hoosier State.

Let me also take a moment to thank President Trump and Melania for all theyve done to make America great. I will always be grateful for the opportunity that they gave us to serve and the way they allowed us to make a difference in the life of this nation, he said.

Pence declined to acknowledge any speculation of him mounting a possible 2024 presidential run, though his name continues to come up as a potential candidate.

What he would admit about his plans for the future involved his lodgings, saying he and former second lady Karen Pence were returning home to Indiana full-time.

The two plan to be fully moved back to their home state by the summer.

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Mike Pence fights back tears, thanks Trump in farewell speech

President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem.

Biden made the announcement as he and Harris met at the White House on Wednesday with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas and other immigration advisers to discuss the increase in migrants, including many unaccompanied minors, arriving at the border in recent weeks.

In delegating the matter to Harris, Biden is seeking to replicate a dynamic that played out when he served as President Barack Obama's vice president. Obama turned to Biden in his first term to lead the White House effort to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq and oversee implementation of stimulus in response to the Great Recession.

When she speaks, she speaks for me, Biden said, noting her past work as California's attorney general makes her specially equipped to lead the administration's response.

Biden, who has faced stiff criticism from Republicans over the increased flow of migrants, is hoping to show Americans he's taking the situation at the border seriously. He also wants to prevent the growing humanitarian and political challenge from overshadowing his administration's ambitious legislative agenda.

But the high-profile assignment for Harris, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and is expected to run for the White House again in the future, could be politically fraught.

Needless to say, the work will not be easy, Harris said. But it is important work.

Harris is tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their own borders, administration officials said. Shes also tasked with developing and implementing a long-term strategy that gets at the root causes of migration from those countries.

Biden suggested President Donald Trump s decision to cut $450 million funding in 2019 to the region was partly to blame for the situation.

Among the other reasons for the current increase: the thousands of Central American migrants already stuck at the border for months and the persistent scourge of gang violence afflicting the Northern Triangle countries.

Still, the numbers of both unaccompanied minors and families encountered at the border are lower than they were at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019.

For Harris, the assignment gives her the first big opportunity to step to the front of the stage on a matter of enormous consequence for the administration. As the first Black woman elected vice president, Harris arrived on the job as a trailblazer. It has remained opaque how Biden would utilize her.

The move echoes not only Obama's decision to deputize Biden but also Trump naming Vice President Mike Pence to lead his coronavirus task force and President Bill Clinton handing Vice President Al Gore environmental and technology portfolios early in his presidency.

It's been a mixed bag for vice presidents in recent history who have been made the point person on delicate matters, said Joel Goldstein, the author of The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden.

Pence's efforts on the coronavirus were stymied by Trump's hijacking of the task force's daily briefings early in the pandemic. Dick Cheney, who had been charged with leading George W. Bush's search for a vice president only to take the spot himself, carved out what was seen by many critics as a shadow presidency in which he had an outsized influence on shaping Bush's national security policies.

And Gore faced headwinds from Republicans in Congress who were reluctant to give him a win ahead of his unsuccessful 2000 run for the White House.

Some of the risk versus reward depends to some extent on the vice president's relationship with the president, Goldstein said. Whether or not the president had their back. Whether the presidents going to allow you to be in a position to accomplish things and be perceived to accomplish things.

Biden made the announcement as a delegation of White House officials and members of Congress was traveled to the southern border on Wednesday to tour a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, where more than 750 migrant teenagers are being held.

The Biden administration has in recent weeks moved to open more than 10,000 new beds across the Southwest in convention centers and former oilfield camps. It notified Congress on Wednesday that it will open a new 3,000-person facility in San Antonio and a 1,400-person site at the San Diego convention center. HHS is also opening a second site in Carrizo Springs and received approval from the Defense Department Wednesday to begin housing teenagers at military bases in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas.

While acknowledging a big problem with the rising numbers of migrants, Rep. Norma Torres D-Calif., one of five lawmakers to tour the facility Wednesday, credited the Biden administration with treating young migrants far more humanely than the Trump administration.

In an interview after the tour, Torres described children accommodated four to a room, and said she saw no signs of overcrowding. The young people attend school, have access to health care and are given weekly COVID-19 tests. Lawmakers were told 1 in 10 children are testing positive for the virus, but none at the facility had been hospitalized, she said.

When I look at those kids, I see myself, said Torres, an immigrant from Guatemala who arrived in the U.S. with her family as a child.

The White House faced criticism for limiting media access to Wednesdays tour, keeping it to just one TV crew. It has still not allowed media to enter Border Patrol facilities where large numbers of children are detained or HHS sites that it rapidly opened under pressure. The Carrizo Springs facility was established in 2019 during the Trump administration and re-opened in February.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is leading a separate delegation of GOP senators to the border later this week, decried the lack of press access as a muzzling of the media by the Democratic administration.

Joe Biden doesnt want you to see, Cruz told reporters at the Capitol.

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Merchant reported from Houston and Lemire from New York. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges - The Independent

The Biden administration on Wednesday -- for the first time -- let journalists into a Texas border facility housing young migrants who crossed the southern border, after weeks of denying access to members of the news media. But it has continued to keep reporters out of other, detention-like facilities filled well over their capacities.

A reporter and camera crew were permitted on Wednesday to enter a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement.

They accompanied a delegation of White House officials and members of Congress touring the facility for minors who have arrived at the border unaccompanied by parents. They saw intake and dining areas, as well as a medical clinic, but they were not allowed to speak to any of the minors.

Unaccompanied immigrant children are seen walking across a parking lot in a frame grab from pool video shot during a tour by White House officials and members of Congress of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility for unaccompanied immigrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.

The administration granted the press access a day before President Joe Biden is scheduled to hold the first formal, solo news conference of his presidency, where he is likely to face questions about why the administration was keeping the news media out.

It also came the same day Biden said he was tapping Vice President Kamala Harris to lead his administration's efforts to stem the flow of migration from Central America and just as the president -- for the first time -- brought reporters into a White House meeting on immigration.

The influx of unaccompanied minors on the border has posed a potent political threat to the president, who has come under fire from Republicans for his handling of the situation.

Children play soccer in a frame grab from pool video shot during a tour by White House officials and members of Congress of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility for unaccompanied immigrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.

Used during the Trump administration but shuttered in July 2019, the Carrizo Springs facility was reopened last month to accommodate the increasing number of unaccompanied children crossing the border. Reporters had been allowed in under former President Donald Trump, although recording devices were not allowed inside.

There are currently 766 boys ranging in age from 13 to 17 years old in the facility, which has never reached its capacity of 952, officials told the reporter, who represented several U.S. television networks, including ABC News. While the journalists were not allowed to speak with the children, whom they saw walking around the grounds and playing soccer and basketball, the members of Congress touring the facility were.

Officials said the facility is not at capacity since they have to set aside space for teens who test positive for COVID-19 when they arrive at the facility and that 108 have tested positive, according to the reporter.

The group was also taken to an empty classroom, recorded video of piles of clothing for new arrivals and saw employees walking around outside buildings on the ground.

Children play basketball in a frame grab from pool video shot during a tour by White House officials and members of Congress of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility for unaccompanied immigrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.

The administration has continued to block access to other facilities along the border that actually have far surpassed their capacities. The White House has cited concerns over privacy and the coronavirus pandemic.

The Carrizo Springs HHS facility, and others like it, represent the second step for many unaccompanied minors picked up by U.S. authorities on the southern border.

First, they are typically taken to detention-like facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where they are, by law, only supposed to remain for up to 72 hours before being transferred to HHS shelters or sent to live with sponsors. Those facilities do not have the same capacity for dealing with children that the HHS ones do.

In recent weeks, the CBP facilities have become overwhelmed with thousands of minors waiting to be transferred -- a record -- as HHS has struggled to provide enough space. HHS has recently said it was opening special intake facilities at convention centers in Dallas and San Diego to help take more minors out of CBP custody.

The department plans to open a second facility in Carrizo Springs and is bringing another similar facility online in Pecos, Texas, to house a total of 2,500 migrant kids.

As of this week, there were approximately 10,500 minors in HHS custody, with nearly 5,000 in CBP custody.

A frame grab from pool video shot during a tour by White House officials and members of Congress of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility for unaccompanied immigrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas, March 24, 2021.

The first glimpses inside a crowded CBP facility came Monday from Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who released photographs showing migrants packed into a CBP overflow facility in Donna, Texas. The next day, CBP released its own video showing the inside of the Donna facility and another one in El Paso, Texas.

Under Trump, CBP officials did allow members of the media to visit a port of entry processing center and border patrol station, but due to privacy concerns, cameras were not allowed to film the interior areas.

When then-Vice President Mike Pence took the press with him to two migrant detention centers in July 2019 -- with the Trump administration under fire for crowded, unsanitary conditions there -- the visit generated dramatic images of Pence standing before hundreds of migrants crammed into cages.

Vice President Mike Pence surveys the holding facility in Donna, Texas, July 12, 2019.

"We're also open to providing access there," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday when pressed on why the administration was still keeping members of the news media out of the other facilities. "And this is just the first step in the process of providing greater access to the media."

Republicans have criticized the Biden team for, they say, being unprepared for migrants coming to the United States in response to Biden rolling back former President Donald Trump's restrictive immigration policies.

The White House, meanwhile, has pointed fingers at Trump -- saying his administration exacerbated the situation by systematically ripping families apart, treating people fleeing violence and poverty with inhumanity and neglecting or dismantling the system set up to deal with them.

Trump's administration turned away minors and separated children from their parents as a matter of policy -- and hundreds still remain apart as a consequence. Biden, on the other hand, has made clear he does not want to turn away the children and teenagers arriving at the border alone.

ABC News' Quinn Owen contributed reporting.

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Biden administration allows access to border facility -- but not ones over capacity - ABC News

DONALD Trump got bad advice that Mike Pence had powers to overturn the election result, the Vice-Presidents former chief of staff has said.

During the Capitol Hillsiege, rioters appeared to scream "hang Mike Pence" after Trump blamed the "furious" Pence for not blocking Joe Biden's win.

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The MAGA fans stormed Congress as lawmakers were voting on certifying Joe Biden as the then President-elect on January 6.

Mark Short has now told CNN that Pence had a strong viewpoint as to what his role was supposed to be that day.

I think unfortunately thepresident was getting bad advicefrom people who had articulatedthat the Vice President wouldhave some extraordinary powersthat had never been used beforein the history of our country, he said.

He went on to say that the poor legal advice that thepresident was receivingIthink led him to believe that there was a different role thevice president could play onthat day.

As the rioters poured into the Capitol, the former Vice President was whisked out of the building.

The apparent chants for Pence to be hanged came afterTrumprepeatedly called for Pence to block Congress from certifying Biden as the winner but the VP said he would not do so.

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Republican Sen Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma toldTulsa World that Pence was outraged at Trump's calls to block the certification of the election.

"Ive never seen Pence as angry as he was today," Inhofe told the news outlet on Tuesday.

He said, After all the things Ive done for (Trump).

Trump had made repeated calls for Pence to block the vote.

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During his speech at the "Save America March" which preceded the Capitol Hill riots on Trump urged Pence to "do the right thing".

"I hope Mike is gonna do the right thing," Trump said. "I hope so, I hope so, because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election."

Trump said: "Mike Pence has to agree to send it back."

As Trump spoke,Pence released a statement, stating he would not block Congress from Certifying Biden as the president-electand did not have the authority to do so.

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"It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not," Pence said.

Following the riots, one official toldThe Washington Postthat Trump was so angry at Pence that he couldnt see straight.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, aRepublican, hailed Pence for his "courage" in upholding the Constitution.

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Trump got bad advice thinking Mike Pence could save election with Congress certification, VPs ex-chief of s - The Sun