President Joe Biden may be in hot water with voters who marked “uncommitted” on their Democratic ballots in Michigan, but he’s not the only front-runner facing intraparty resistance.
An AP VoteCast poll released Sunday found that at least 20% of GOP voters in the first three primary states say they will refuse to vote for former President Donald Trump.
Echoing that resistance, which mostly exists among more moderate voters, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have said they won’t back Trump, as has former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
Perhaps most concerning for Trump is that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the last non-Trump GOP presidential candidate still running, has indicated she no longer feels bound by the Republican National Committee pledge she took to support the party’s nominee.
“I’ll make what decision I want to make,” Haley told NBC on Sunday. “But that’s not something I’m thinking about. And I think that while you all think about that, I’m looking at the fact that we had thousands of people in Virginia, we’re headed to North Carolina, we’re going to continue to go to Vermont, and Maine, and all these states to go and show people that there is a path forward. And so, I don’t look at what if.”
The “RNC is now not the same RNC,” she added.
If Haley’s voters follow her lead, that could spell trouble for Trump.
In the Michigan primaries, 81% of Democrats backed Biden, and 13% voted “uncommitted” as a protest vote against his support for Israel, while on the Republican side, Trump received 68% to Haley’s 28%.
Furthermore, if Biden can negotiate a ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict, it could lessen the dissent from within his party, whereas Trump is unlikely to convince Haley-Murkowski-Collins voters with policy alone.
“Both of them have partisan voters who are off the reservation, but in Michigan, Trump only got 68% of the vote, and Biden got 81%,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “There are clearly some partisan voters out there who are not satisfied with the heir apparent presidential nominees.”
Bannon predicted that most of the disaffected partisans will come home on Election Day, arguing that the bigger issue will be independent voters who didn’t vote in the primaries.
“If you look at the voters [who] didn’t vote for Trump in the primaries, they think he’s too bombastic,” Bannon said. “They think he’s too abrasive, and I think the best way for Trump to solve that problem would be to put Haley on the ticket, although I know they won’t take it.”
Trump’s campaign downplayed the AP poll results.
“Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,” said spokesman Steven Cheung. “Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.”
Similarly, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said that Biden “is proud to have received more than 80 percent of the Democratic Party vote” and pointed to outreach from senior officials to Muslim and Arab American voters.
The size of the “Never Trump” vote will become more clear after Super Tuesday. Along with Haley, Republican voters in Alabama, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas can vote “no preference” to make their dissatisfaction known.
Democratic voters in Alabama and Colorado can mark “noncommitted” delegate, while those in Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Tennessee can vote “no preference.”
Christian Ferry, a Republican strategist and 2008 deputy campaign manager for John McCain, feels that Trump is in better shape despite the sizable Haley vote, and for a simple reason.
“Trump’s voters are enthusiastic, while Biden’s are not,” he said.
It’s Biden who will need to work harder to convince independent and undecided voters, Ferry argues, rather than Trump, who inspires a higher level of enthusiasm and support among the party faithful. The threat of third-party campaigns, for similar reasons, looms larger for Biden.
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“At the end of the day, if [undecided voters] stay home or go to a third party candidacy, that’s a win for Trump,” he said.
Recent polling bears out Ferry’s arguments. A Bloomberg poll released last week had Trump winning each of seven swing states by at least 4 points, and a Fox News poll found that Biden was slumping with key Democratic demographics, including black and Hispanic voters.
