Thread by @dsamuelsohn

NEW: Trump backers called Pence a 'traitor' during CPAC, mocked the ex-VP for skipping the confab, and gave him just 1% in a poll of potential 2024 GOP presidential contenders businessinsider.com/pence-2024-tru… by @tomlobianco ($) in @thisisinsider

Mike Pence was pretty much an afterthought at CPAC 2021.

The former vice president didn't come to the central Florida event. His name barely registered a mention over three-plus days here, save a cameo video appearance on a TV displayed in a far-off corner of the conference.

Trump's most faithful supporters mocked the ex-president's 2x running mate right in front of reporters. And in a straw poll of potential GOP candidates interested in a '24 run Pence's name sat sandwiched among a pack of 1%ers that included Tucker Carlson, Rand Paul & Tim Scott.

It was a complete 180 for the longtime conservative champion who spent the last two decades wowing audiences at the annual confab known as the Super Bowl of the right.

It also demonstrated just how little room there is now for aspiring Republicans who don't have Trump's last name while the party contemplates its near-term future in the political wilderness while Democrats hold the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Pence declined an invitation to speak at CPAC this year, and an advisor to the ex-VP would only say that Pence was keeping a "low profile" since leaving the White House.

That left Trump and his supporters to hold court over the roughly 1,400 attendees who packed two floors of the expansive Hyatt hotel during a global pandemic while disparaging Pence over being a no-show.

"That's not the response of a future leader of the Republican Party, to say, 'Oh well, I guess I'm not coming,'" said Matthew Braynard, a strategist who worked on Trump's '16 presidential campaign and more recently w/ Giuliani in a quixotic bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Others served up their own versions of harsh anti-Pence rhetoric, much of it tied to their incorrect belief that Trump's No. 2 failed to use his powers presiding over the Congressional certification of Joe Biden's White House victory to declare Trump the real winner.

Just as @thisisinsider prepared to interview Indianapolis radio talk show host Tony Katz about Pence's future last weekend, a CPAC attendee chimed in by calling the ex-vice president a "traitor." This person said Pence wasn't welcome at the conference.

Pence didn't get totally dissed. Veteran conservatives working on often-forgotten issues like fiscal restraint spoke in wistful tones of Pence, a former Indiana governor and one-time member of the House GOP leadership.

Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidant who tried w/o success to crash CPAC this year, said in an interview that Pence missed an opportunity by staying away from the conference: "If I were Mike Pence, I would have come to CPAC because he has a huge amount of damage to repair."

But Stone also said that Pence wouldn't exactly be doing much for his own cause — should that cause be a future White House bid — had he decided to go to Orlando.

"If Mike Pence should decide to run for president in 2024, he will not be the nominee of the Republican Party because he is viewed, rightly or wrongly, by many people in the movement as a traitor," Stone said.

The full Pence report can be read w/ a @thisisinsider subscription. Here's how to sign up: businessinsider.com/subscription