Former Republican strategist turned anti-Trump commentator Rick Wilson has a blunt message for Republicans going into the fall: Trump is on the brink of destroying you.
In a way, Wilson told MS NOW's Katy Tur on Friday, the conditions are similar to the enormous wave election in 2006 that saw Republicans swept from power in both chambers of Congress — but there is a key difference.
On one hand, said Wilson, "the high gas prices, the unpopular war, the mishandling of Katrina, that added up to a lot of overhead and front headwinds for Republicans." The difference, he said, is that "what you didn't have was a president who was absolutely every day aggressively trying to make things worse."
For all these reasons, said Wilson, regretful Trump voters are getting more and more visible in the data — and their impact could be huge.
"The numbers are not enormous, they're not even a majority, they're not even close to a majority," said Wilson. Howeever, "there are Republicans now who are like, I regret this. I got to get out of this thing." Wilson pegs that number as around 15-20 percent of Trump voters — a massive difference from the roughly 2 percent it used to be.
"So it is a changing environment," Wilson concluded. "The harm he keeps doing is making it harder and harder for Republicans to hold majorities this fall."
