On a crisp evening in a small town not far from Iowa’s southwestern border, Mike Pence’s decades-long quest for the White House has come down to a coin toss.
Here he is, the most recent former GOP vice president, standing at the 50-yard-line of a high school football field in a town just shy of 7,000. The team captains stand alongside him and his wife Karen, the smell of brats grilling and corn popping in the air.
Tails. The hometown Trojans win the toss against the Perry Bluejays. “There’s nothing like Friday night lights,” he will soon tell a reporter from the student newspaper. “We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”