“There is no shadow campaign,” a senior political adviser to Mike Pence told me Monday, pouring cold water on the persistent speculation that Donald Trump’s broad-shouldered vice president has been anything less than faithful to his volatile boss. “The president tasked the vice president with being the tip of the spear for the midterm elections. Our actions have the full support of the president’s re-election team,” the adviser explained, referring to Pence’s recent cross-country expeditions on behalf of Republican congressional candidates—an expansive political role that has put Pence in contact with some of the most prominent fund-raisers in states across the country. “If there was a shadow campaign,” the adviser continued, “we certainly wouldn’t ask for $5,000 contributions and disclose them publicly. It lacks credibility.”

Talk of a “shadow campaign” isn’t the sort of thing with which vice presidents typically contend when supporting their boss’s re-election efforts. But Trump isn’t a typical president, and Pence, G.O.P. strategists say, would be stupid not to be preparing various contingencies. “I don’t know how you could argue they are not preparing for every eventuality and doing so in a more overt manner than has been done in the past,” a veteran Republican political operative said, summarizing the views of many inside the party. “He isn’t just filling a need.”

Indeed, buzz about Pence’s political aspirations has become something of a parlor game in Washington. While Trump remains the alpha and omega of Republican politics, Pence has quietly taken the lead on virtually all the midterm drudgery usually overseen by the president—making endorsements, conferring with party power brokers, meeting with voters in battleground states. Those in Pence’s orbit cooly dismiss the notion that there is anything to see here beyond perfectly innocent fund-raisers and other voter turnout activities. Trump, after all, is not particularly interested in the machinery of Republican politics, which is now more diffuse than ever. There’s the president and his Twitter account, of course; a somewhat disengaged White House political shop; the Trump re-election campaign, already up and running; the so-called dark-money group America First Policies and an affiliated super PAC, which are the official outside groups promoting Trump’s agenda; and there’s the Republican National Committee. Dispatching the vice president is only logical.

Among those who suspect Pence has one eye on the throne, however, those maneuvers look like a tell. Pence’s parallel political operation now bypasses the president’s. Last May, he startled political observers by creating Great America Committee to raise resources for House and Senate Republicans, as well as to finance his travel on Air Force Two. (Unlike America First Policies, the standard PAC is constrained by federal fund-raising limits and has to reveal its donors.) This year, Pence formed a joint fund-raising committee with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, dubbed “Protect the House,” to raise money that flows directly to House Republicans and their campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee.

“No question, it’s unusual,” a Republican insider and former leadership aide in Congress told me. “Most V.P. offices haven’t dreamed of having separate political operations from that of the president of the United States.” Nor would they think to hire Nick Ayers, the hyper-political campaign operative who now serves as Pence’s chief of staff. As one G.O.P. pollster told me, the move was as shocking as if Vice President George H.W. Bush had tapped Lee Atwater as his chief during the Reagan years. “Pence is not stupid,” a Republican consultant with Indiana ties said, reflecting on the vice president’s political rise from conservative radio host to politician-in-residence at No. 1 Observatory Circle. “Trump is very volatile, and Pence has never intentionally been volatile.” In other words: If anyone is looking three moves down the chess board, it’s Pence.