Republicans in a battleground swing state are saying former President Donald Trump handed conservatives to Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election, a new report reveals.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that recent Trump gaffes — such as inviting to Madison Square Garden a comedian who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" — has a slew of Pennsylvania voters ready and eager to vote Democratic.
"Many in the Puerto Rican community who were on the fence were reminded of who Trump is," Jaime Arroyo, the Puerto Rico-born vice president of Lancaster’s city council, reportedly said. "It really pushed them over the edge.”
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This is excellent news for a Harris campaign relying on onetime GOP voters, women in particular, to "recoil in horror" at Trump, wrote columnist E. J. Dionne.
According to the columnist, Republicans know it.
"We made losing great again," said former House member and Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris leader Charlie Dent. "We’re not going to get back to the Republican Party as it was. But we can do a hell of a lot better than this. MAGA is a dead end.”
James C. Greenwood, his fellow Republicans for Harris leader, told the Post he voted for former President Richard Nixon, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), and every Republican in between, but could not bring himself to choose Trump.
Greenwood described the Republican presidential nominee as, “a malignant narcissist, a grotesque liar and a con man who is totally unfit for office.”
Stella Sexton, vice chair of the Lancaster County's Democratic Party, remains unsure if her region will flip for Harris after going for Trump in both 2016 and 2020, according to the Post.
But there have been signs of progress.
"Lancaster, along with York and Bucks counties, was on Trump’s list of places he complained about to prepare the groundwork for claiming Pennsylvania was 'stolen' from him if he loses," Dionne concluded.
"The reality — that he has squandered the support of otherwise reliable Republicans — is impossible for him to accept."