President Biden’s reelection campaign faces the difficult task of appealing to moderate Republicans who may feel stranded in this election with former President Trump on the ballot.
The president has a golden opportunity to woo some of these voters, which would improve his re-election chances and expand his coalition.
That number is important. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) won 16% of Republican voters in last week’s Pennsylvania primary, despite dropping her candidacy against Trump nearly two months ago.
“It’s going to take effort, but I think it’s doable,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) told reporters Friday, noting that a significant portion of Haley’s 35% won in her home state. It pointed out. say they don’t support President Trump in November.
Kaine also said that simply keeping them out of Trump’s column would be a victory in itself.
“If they don’t vote for Trump, there’s no need to convince them. That’s a vote that’s out of Trump’s category. Now I think we can convince some of them,” Kaine said. He added that he was actively courting them as part of his re-election campaign in the former dominion. “We’re focused on those people and we think we have a chance to get a lot of them. I think President Biden can do that as well.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), whose run in the Republican presidential primary drew attention from moderate Republicans, said last week that Biden’s failure to respond directly to his request was “pretty stupid.” ”, which became a hot topic of discussion. support.
Mr. Christie has made it clear that he will not vote for Mr. Trump, and in a conversation hosted at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics on Tuesday night, he said Mr. Biden should ask Mr. Trump for his vote and support.
The Biden campaign did not provide an answer as to why it did not contact Christie.
But the decision illustrates the uphill battle Biden faces in appealing to these types of Republicans.
“It’s unfortunate that I think the president is starting with a bit of a deficit, because the first two years of his administration were not playing the addition game for voters. “The White House seemed more willing to listen to professional progressives,” said John Labombard, former communications director for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).
“It’s often forgotten that voters don’t have to make a choice if they’re dissatisfied with their choice. That’s why disillusioned Republican voters who don’t want to support Donald Trump are likely to blank their ballots and vote for the president. He could easily leave the election line.”
Still, the Biden campaign is working to gain support from Haley voters, an effort that began soon after Haley withdrew from the Republican primary.
The campaign launched a new ad Thursday aimed at Ms. Haley’s voters and disaffected Republicans, aiming to highlight President Trump’s disdain for Ms. Haley and her supporters.
The campaign previously posted a video of Trump criticizing Haley during the Republican primary, saying, “If you voted for Nikki Haley, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote.” Published an ad warning. Biden’s team also issued a statement claiming that Trump has made it clear that voters who do not participate in MAGA are not welcome in his campaign.
“I think it’s a worthwhile investment. The president here includes conservative but moderates who are disillusioned with the turmoil surrounding former President Trump and what a second Trump term could mean for the country.” “I think there’s a hole in the air among common-sense Republican voters,” LaBombard said.
Haley also performed well in other Republican primaries, including in her home state of South Carolina. The former U.N. ambassador also won primaries in Vermont and the District of Columbia in March.
But given the close results that handed Trump the presidency in 2016 and replaced him four years later, it has given Democrats new optimism and caused heartburn for some Republicans. The numbers are from Pennsylvania. The bulk of her 157,000 votes came in suburban Philadelphia counties, where she received about 42,000 votes, reaching the highest level of 25 percent.
“In a closed state, that’s not an insignificant number,” one Republican strategist said, adding that Trump won the state by just 44,000 votes in 2016 and Biden won in 2020. He pointed out that he won by a margin of 80,000 votes. She had dropped out of school. You’re talking about close margins in competitive primaries. …Even if even half of those voters turned out to be Biden voters, there wouldn’t be much margin for error. ”
As of last month, President Trump I haven’t reached out yet After a terrible preliminary fight, he sued Haley in an attempt to reconcile. That hasn’t changed nearly two months after she ended her campaign. Haley also declined to express her support for the former president.
All of this came after he declared in a post on Truth Social that he had “put Haley in a corner” on Super Tuesday before calling on her supporters to “participate in the largest movement in the history of our country.”
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has sought to highlight times when Trump has alienated Haley’s voters, including various times when Trump called her “bird-brained” and “not presidential material.” It’s here. They also quoted former President Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who said on a recent podcast, “Fuck Nikki Haley, we don’t need her support.”
David Thomas, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Vice President Al Gore, said Biden also has an opportunity because President Trump doesn’t appear to be working hard to appeal to moderates.
“I think the president is trying to reach out to moderate centrists, moderate Republicans, especially independents,” he said. “When it comes to such a close election, it’s this coalition that he needs to win. We all know that. That’s certainly what he’s doing here, and President Trump is Never do that.”
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