Republicans Against Trump strategist says a surprising number of Trump voters can be persuaded to vote against him
Republican Voters Against Trump has been among the groups to show the astounding number of conservatives unwilling to reelect the far-right president. Most recently they uploaded an endorsement video from a former Homeland Security chief of staff under President Donald Trump's administration that voiced his support of former Vice President Joe Biden.
But according to strategist Mike Murphy, just because Trump has a presidential campaign doesn't mean he knows that he has any kind of real strategy behind him.
"We're kind of are trained to expect very sophisticated campaigns," said Murphy, a veteran of the '88 and '92 Bush and 2000 McCain campaigns. "Here's a guy at the top doing angry tweets. There's a staff mostly of second tier, third tier people, who, you know they can't control him so they're trying to turn on the machinery. So, that's why it's all tactics. The tactic this week is let's throw out wild video ads to get in the news cycle while the Democrats hammer us at the convention."
When it comes to Trump's campaign against Joe Biden's mental health, Murphy explained, "Trump is no giant in the mental acuity department himself." He confessed, "I don't know where the strategic advantage is."
All Biden would have to do is give a decent speech at the convention and he wipes away everything Trump has spent money on.
"So, because they're behind and desperate and because it's lord of the flies on the inside, and they're all circling for Trump's approval, they're going to try something new every week," Murphy explained. "And it will be increasingly desperate. It will be negative because the only strategy they have is to try to disqualify Biden. If it's a referendum on Trump, which it is now, Trump loses."
After having a slate of Republican leaders endorse Biden for first-night casual independent viewers who, Murphy said he doesn't see many of the Republicans influencing the GOP but it is more likely to impact conservative independent voters.
"I know from my work at Republican Voters Against Trump, we do a lot of polling, and 1 out of 4 habitual Republicans, people who vote almost always Republican in presidential elections, 1 out of 4 have private doubts about Trump," said Murphy. "If we can give them permission-structure that it's okay to kind of rent, not buy, Biden for a day, and peel 10 or 15 percent off, so Trump's Republican number goes down in the 80s, we got them. And [former Gov. John] Kasich did a good job. The Whitmans did a good job, [and] Susan Molinari, of showing it's okay to be a Republican who is not on board Trump. And so, yeah, I thought it was incrementally better. But the big weapon was Michelle Obama."
Host Chuck Todd explained that people are furious about so many Republicans having such a hot prime-time spot on the first night of the convention. He said that typically, the non-Democratic voters will tune in on the first night and the final night, so showing those persuadable people the GOP faces that make them comfortable to vote for Biden was key to the first night.
See the conversation below: