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.
