A former campaign official for George W. Bush said that while Gen. John Kelly's comments about Donald Trump won't likely impact vote turnout, they could suppress conservatives in states with tight races.
A bombshell interview with Kelly posted Tuesday included audio of Kelly speaking in his own words about his disgust of Trump. The report came mere hours after another story from The Atlantic reported shocking details about Trump's reneging on a promise to cover funeral costs for the family of a slain Army private.
"It casts a light on sort of the — just the base corrupt, you know, disgusting nature of Donald Trump who does nothing except for self," said Matt Dowd, chief strategist for Bush's campaign. "And a person in the military, especially someone that's given a sacrifice, lost a limb, lost a loved one, it shines such a bright light on who Donald Trump is, and he knows that."
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What happened during the Bush campaign in 2000, he recalled, is the "October Surprise" that Bush had a 24-year-old DUI. He prefaced it that it was the days that having a DUI could impact conservatives and Republicans who cared about "character."
"That DUI information — and this is why I counsel people to observe what this could do — it's not going to shift people from a Trump voter to a Harris voter," he said. "What it's likely to do is the same thing that happened with the DUI."
He recalled putting three polls in the field in Ohio, Florida and Michigan to see how the DUI news impacted the race.
"And what changed was people's motivation to vote," he said. "There was about a 6% or 7% drop among conservatives and Republicans to vote for George W. Bush. And it took Michigan from a tie-state to a state we were losing in a matter of 72 hours. It took Ohio from a comfortable state to a state we were barely winning. And it took Florida from a state that we were winning by one or two to a state that was tied. All of that happened over the course of three or four days."
He said that what Kelly's comments, and further comments from other military officials, could do is make a huge difference in a state where the polls are tied.
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