Trump-endorsed 'fringe' candidates could cost him GOP votes in two crucial states: ex-aide
A pair of MAGA candidates could cost Donald Trump two key states he'll likely need to win the presidential election.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House director of strategic communications during Trump's last year in office, told CNN Wednesday night that two far-right candidates he endorsed – Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson – could pull Republican votes away from the former president.
"My hot take of the evening is two fringe, polarizing political figures could actually lose the presidential race for Donald Trump, and that isn't Donald Trump," Griffin said. "Kari Lake in Arizona and Mark Robinson in North Carolina. These are two battleground states that were not seriously in play when it was [President Joe] Biden versus Trump, but Kamala Harris has put them in play."
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Griffin believes those two Trump-endorsed candidates could push disaffected Republicans to break with their party and back the Democratic candidate for president, or at least stay home.
"Mark Robinson has been on the record with some deeply antisemitic statements, some anti-woman statements and deep misogyny," Griffin said. "Kari Lake, the list goes on – election denialism and so on. Both could motivate people to come out, [and] that could actually boost Kamala Harris on the ticket, and particularly in Arizona, where the [John] McCain coalition of former Republicans will come out with a vengeance and they will strongly consider voting for Harris."
She said that dynamic played out in the past two major election cycles, when Trump backed extreme candidates who lost their races and cost Republicans congressional majorities and dumped him out of the White House.
"Candidates matter, and that's 2018, 2020 saved Democrats by a lot of candidates that were pretty bad fundamentally," Griffin said.
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