President Biden’s re-election campaign faces the difficult task of appealing to moderate Republicans who may feel they have nowhere to go this election with former President Trump on the ballot.
The president has a golden opportunity to rip off some of his voters, which will improve his chances of re-election and expand his coalition.
The numbers are significant. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (Republican) won 16% of Republican voters in last week’s Pennsylvania primary despite dropping out of the race against Trump nearly two months ago.
“It’s going to take work, but I think it’s possible,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters Friday, adding that many of the 35% of the vote that Haley won in her home state won’t support Trump in November. He said he wouldn’t.
Kaine also said simply keeping them out of Trump’s column would be a victory in itself.
“You don’t have to beat them if they don’t vote for Trump. That’s a vote out of the Trump category. Now I think we’re going to beat some of them.” Kaine said, adding that he is actively courting them as part of Old Dominion’s re-election campaign. “We’re focused on those people, and we think we have an opportunity to get a lot of them, and I think President Biden can too.”
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who attracted the attention of moderate Republicans by running in the Republican presidential primary, made headlines last week when he said it was “absolutely foolish” that Biden did not directly ask for his support. support
Christie has made it clear that he will not vote for Trump and said in a conversation Tuesday night at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that Biden should ask for his vote and support.
The Biden campaign did not provide an answer as to why he did not contact Christie.
But the decision speaks to the uphill battle Biden faces to appeal to these types of Republicans.
“It’s unfortunate to think that the president is starting with a slight deficit because he hasn’t played the addition game with voters in his first two years in office. But for the first few years, the White House seemed much more willing to listen to the professional progressive class, said John LaBombard, former communications director for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
“It’s easy to forget that if voters aren’t happy with their choices, they don’t have to make them. “So disillusioned Republican voters who don’t want to support Donald Trump could very easily leave their ballots blank and walk away from the presidential election line,” he added.
Still, the Biden campaign is working to court Haley voters, an effort that began as soon as Haley dropped out of the GOP primary.
The campaign launched a new ad Thursday aimed at targeting Haley voters and highlighting Trump’s insults to her and her supporters in a bid to target disaffected Republicans.
The campaign previously ran an ad showing Trump criticizing Haley during the Republican primary with the warning, “If you voted for Nikki Haley, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote.” Biden’s team released a statement asserting that Trump had made it clear that voters who do not belong to MAGA are not welcome in his camp.
“I think this is a worthwhile investment. I think the president presents an opportunity for moderate, kind of common-sense Republican voters who may be conservative, but who are understandably disillusioned with the chaos surrounding former President Trump and what that could mean for the country during Trump’s second term. do.” Labombard said.
Haley also had strong showings in other Republican primaries, such as in her home state of South Carolina. The former United Nations ambassador also won primary elections in Vermont and the District of Columbia in March.
But given the close results that helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 and cost him the presidency four years later, it’s the Pennsylvania numbers that are giving Democrats new optimism and upsetting some Republicans. The bulk of her 157,000 votes came from suburban Philadelphia counties, where she won nearly 42,000 votes and had a top vote share of 25%.
“Those are not trivial numbers under lockdown,” said one Republican strategist, noting that Trump won the state by just 44,000 votes in 2016 and Biden won the state by 80,000 votes in 2020. She dropped out. You’re talking about razor-thin margins in competitive primaries. … “If even half of those voters turn out to be Biden voters, there’s not a lot of room for error.”
As of last month, Trump had yet to reach out to Haley in an attempt to reconcile after a bruising primary. This has not changed in the nearly two months since she concluded her campaign. Haley also rejected offers of support for the former president.
This all comes after he declared she was “TROUNCED” in a TruthSocial post on Super Tuesday, before urging Haley supporters to “join the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has clearly highlighted times when Trump has pushed out Haley voters. Like the many times he called Haley a “n***a” or “not presidential material.” They also shared a quote from former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who recently said on his podcast, “Fuck Nikki Haley – we don’t need her endorsement.”
David Thomas, a Democratic strategist and adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, noted that Biden has a chance because Trump doesn’t seem to be trying hard to appeal to moderates.
“I think the president is trying to reach out to moderate moderates, moderate Republicans, especially independents,” he said. “This is the coalition he needs to win if he’s going to be the close option we all know he is. “That’s what he’s doing here, and it’s certainly not what President Trump will do.”
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