More on GOP Unity
First, via WaPo, Haley hints she isn’t bound by loyalty pledge to support GOP nominee.
When asked directly if she would endorse Trump if she dropped out, she wouldn’t answer but said she has “serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.”
That formulation, which I understand why someone in her position would deploy, is pretty nonsensical, ultimately, since if those are the nominees, those are your choices. The comparison is especially ridiculous when she acknowledges things like the following:
Haley also said on “Meet The Press” that she worried whether Trump would follow the Constitution if he was elected to a second term.
“You always want to think someone will, but I don’t know,” Haley said. “When you go and you talk about revenge, when you go and you talk about, you know, vindication, what does that mean?”
Of course, I understand she still thinks there is a chance he will drop out over legal issues (or be rejected at the convention) and she will be the last candidate standing.
At any rate, having a co-partisan equivocate on endorsement and also suggesting that the party’s nominee might not follow the US Constitution is not exactly a sign of unity.
Secondly, and more importantly, along that theme is this via the AP: A chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump as the GOP nominee.
According to AP VoteCast surveys of the first three head-to-head Republican contests, 2 in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters would be so disappointed by Trump’s renomination that they would refuse to vote for him in the fall.
Again, it is early and those voters have time to change their minds. But when we consider that Trump has never won the national popular vote, even minor defections can matter since he needs a very specific set of state-level outcomes to return to the White House.
He clearly is in command of a large segment of the GOP coalition, and his overall candidacy will benefit greatly from partisanship in a binary-choice scenario. But the notion that he is fully is control of his party is a view that is driven by anxiety over the fact that he can still win with minority support, not because he is truly in a position of strength.
Don’t misunderstand, I fully understand that he can regain the presidency under these conditions and I further understand Biden’s own weaknesses. But there is ongoing evidence that Trump is weaker than the anxiety narrative would suggest.
I say this even when looking at polling from yesterday as published by the NYT: Voters Doubt Biden’s Leadership and Favor Trump, Times/Siena Poll Finds.
While past performance is not indicative of future results, it is worth noting that Trump failed to reach 47% of the national popular vote in both 2016 and 2020. Biden won just over 51% in 2020. This raises the question of where the bulk of that 10% will go, among other issues.
As such, the race is far closer than I would like it to be when one of the candidates “jokes” about being a dictator for a day, among other serious concerns. Still, I think that it is worth noting that Trump’s coalition has its own challenges and that his party is not as unified as he claims it is.
I would really love to hear the list of things that Joe Biden has done that Nikki Haley thinks are worse or more dangerous than:
* Attempting to overturn the results of a democratic election
* Extorting political favors from Ukraine in exchange for military aid against Russia
* Sexual assault against multiple women
* Public praise for white supremacists
* Appointing unqualified family members to key diplomatic roles
* Advising Americans to fight COVID with bleach and/or ivermectin
At a certain point, the media need to call her on this “even more afraid of Biden” nonsense and make her back it up with reasons. We all understand exactly why she’s doing it; we’re complicit if we let her pretend it’s a coherent (much less reasonable) position.
@DrDaveT: I think Nikki has to cast Biden as worse than Trump because if she does not, Trump’s messaging is that she prefers the Democratic candidate and can longer be trusted by Republicans. Until it becomes immutably true that Trump is the Republican nominee, I don’t think its realistic to expect her to acknowledge that real choice. I wonder only whether she will change that messaging when Trump is finally nominated.
@Joe:
Haley said today that she no longer feels bound by the Republican pledge to support Trump when he becomes the nominee.
If you look at the crosstabs, 18% of the respondents said they didn’t vote in 2020.
16% are under 30, so let’s guesstimate that 4% are under 22 and weren’t eligible to vote in 2020. That leaves 14% of the respondents as incredibly-unlikely-voters who are just noise.
Nationally, voter turnout in 2020 was 66%, so it’s likely that another big chunk (33 – 14 = 19, minus some die off and skipping our too-young voters… another 14%?) are lying in the poll and are not much more than aspirational-voters.
I don’t see any predictive value in a poll that has 25-30% incredibly-unlikely-voters. It’s a starting point for asking questions, maybe, but all it really shows is that there is no massive lead for either candidate.
@Gustopher: Some of these polls have very surprising crosstabs, to say the least.
The hope has to be that our malcontents are smart enough to know they still have to show up, and that their malcontents will be discouraged enough to stay home. We are motivated by fear, they are motivated by hate. I think fear is the stronger emotion, but I couldn’t swear to it.
Anecdota not data, but I and a few other people who live in the reddest of places have noticed a decided drop in enthusiasm among the MAGA crowd. There are still a few of the hard core flag flying extremist nutjobs around, but their numbers are far fewer. I can’t recall the last time I saw a MAGA hat and the MAGA bumper stickers in a WalMart parking lot could be counted on one or 2 hands.
They could all still turn out to vote (I doubt it tho)(trump has told them time and again elections are rigged) and I’m pretty damned sure they are tired of trump rattling the tin cup for legal fees and appeal bonds. Isn’t he a multi-billionaire?
Anyway, I would not even dare to make a prediction for Nov 5 based on my paltry local observations (nor the others who live in places like mine) but the GOP (to my hopeful eyes anyway) appears to be in early end stage cancer. Just look at the rats abandoning ship (Bye bye, Blaine!).
We can only hope something sane takes it’s place. Which I’m pretty damned sure won’t happen with Leutkemeyer for at least a few years.
Haley won the D.C. primary in a landslide.
@CSK:
A city of 715,000, and they could barely find 2,000 Republicans.