TRUMP NEEDS HALEY VOTERS TO WIN WHITE HOUSE
Things are looking good for Donald Trump. He (nearly) swept Super Tuesday. Nikki Haley has ended her primary challenge. The Supreme Court struck down efforts to keep him off the ballot. And four new polls show him beating President Biden in November.
Biden is almost twice as unpopular as Trump was at this point in 2020, measured by the gap between their approval and disapproval. A 43% plurality of Americans say the president’s polices have hurt them personally (only 18% say they have helped), he faces double-digit disapproval on every issue, and 86% say he is too old for another term.
Many Republicans look at this and say: There’s no way Biden can win.
Yes, he can. And if you don’t believe it, I’ve got three words for you:
Sen. John Fetterman.
Pennsylvanians demonstrated in 2022 that Americans will vote for a Democrat who had a stroke during the campaign if they don’t like the Republican alternative. And though Biden is the most unpopular president in the history of polling, Trump is almost as unpopular. In November, millions of Americans will be choosing between two candidates they dislike. Trump needs them to dislike him less.
The issue facing Trump is not “Never Trump” voters who didn’t support him in the past and won’t vote for him now under any circumstances. It is “Not Trump Again” voters, Americans who are open to his policies — and might have voted for him before — but don’t like how he behaved, particularly after the 2020 election, and supported Haley in the primaries. The former group is unpersuadable; the latter might not be.
But Trump has to go out and persuade them. He needs to recognize that right now; the party is not united.
It is deeply divided between the dominant MAGA wing, which encompasses about two-thirds of Republican voters, and the not-MAGA wing, which makes up about a third. Trump can’t take back the presidency without bringing the not-MAGA Republicans into his fold. But according to the Fox News Voter Analysis, 53% of not-MAGA Republicans in Iowa, 57% in South Carolina and 65% in New Hampshire say they won’t cast their ballot for Trump in November.
If even a fraction follows through on that promise, it could cost him the White House.
One challenge in bringing them in: Many Trump-skeptical Republicans voted for him in 2016 because the Supreme Court was on the ballot. Well, thanks to his success in securing the 6-3 conservative majority, the Supreme Court is no longer the driving issue it was for these Republicans.
This much is certain: The election will tighten, and Trump can’t afford to leave any votes on the table. Attacking Haley supporters as “RINOs” might make his MAGA base swoon, but it does not help him win the presidency. He needs to make a concerted effort to earn the votes of Republicans who did not support him in the primaries.
He also needs to win over independent swing voters who like how his policies have improved their lives but don’t like him. Biden’s disastrous presidency means Trump-skeptical voters might be willing to give the former president a fresh look — but only if he asks for one.
How does he do that? He needs to convince them that a second Trump term would be a return not to chaos but to competence; that he would use the presidency not to seek revenge but to restore our country. He needs to pick a vice president with broad appeal to all wings of the party, not one who will confirm many Republicans’ worst fears. And he needs to signal that he understands why some are skeptical about returning him to the White House and assure them that their concerns are unfounded — and thus give them permission to vote in their self-interest.
Biden is weak, and Trump’s hardcore MAGA base is firmly behind him. But MAGA voters are not going to decide this election. Haley might be out of the race, but Haley voters and others who did not support Trump could decide the election.