Trump voters stick with him even when watching him make 'liberal or stupid comments': report

A right-wing anti-Donald Trump group has been trying to test messages to see what will persuade supporters of the former president to abandon him — and are coming up completely empty, reportedThe New York Times on Thursday.

"The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina," reported Jonathan Swan. "But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective."

In the memo, McIntosh said, “Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it ... Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability. This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.”

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Trump has broken with some Republican orthodoxy as he runs for re-election, even going after his opponents for being too harsh on abortion bans, despite having appointed three of the Supreme Court justices that greenlit those bans in the first place.

According to the report, Win It Back has tried a number of attacks on Trump from the right, including his “handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many others” — and none of it has worked.

Trump is currently leading all of his other challengers by about 40 points, according to some polls. His key rivals gathered for a debate at the Reagan Library in California, which the former president did not attend.