'Republicans are circling the wagons': GOP strategist busts claim verdict helps Trump

Republican strategist Sarah Longwell dismissed claims that Donald Trump’s guilty verdict at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse last week will boost the former president’s re-electability, telling CNN’s Dana Bash “Republicans are circling the wagons” after their 2024 presumptive presidential nominee’s felony conviction.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) on Sunday told Fox News host Shannon Beam that a guilty verdict in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money/falsifying records case against Trump “has actually unified our party.”

Scott, in that interview, claimed “Never-Trump” Republicans are calling him to say they’re “on the bandwagon now.”

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Longwell on Monday contested Scott’s claim.

“I don't know who he's talking to,” Longwell told Bash. "I don't think there are a whole lot of ‘Never-Trumpers’ — I mean, it is in the name. When we say never, we mean never, because Donald Trump has been unfit from the beginning.”

Longwell explained that she runs focus groups “all the time” and “did one on Friday with two-time Trump voters.”

“In that group of nine voters, five of them said [a conviction] made them less likely to vote for him,” Longwell said. “And in fact the majority of the group was going to go [President Joe] Biden, so I just think that Republicans are circling the wagons.”

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“They know that being a convicted felon will have an effect on marginal swing voters,” she added. “And so they're doing their best to build a narrative that this is good for Trump.”

Bash then played audio of Longwell’s focus group, which featured one two-time Trump voter who argued “nothing’s moving the needle for me.”

“Trump is unfit for office,” that voter said. “And so, the trial was highly politicized, but in the hands of the jury, both sides had the chance to present their case. And that's ultimately how it should have been done.”

“I don't know what I'm going to do,” another voter admitted to Longwell.

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Analyzing these comments, the Republican strategist told Bash she’s “always believed that Trump's committed base” will “want to vote for Trump harder” after his criminal conviction.

“But they still only have their one vote,” Longwell noted. “It is these marginal swing voters in swing states that are going to be critical and that are going to matter. And a lot of these voters are what we call double-haters, or doubled-doubters or ‘a pox on both their houses.’ They don't like Biden and they don't like Trump.”

“But for a lot of them, things like the conviction, as well as Trump just coming back into focus, turns this election from a referendum on Biden to them remembering why they disliked Trump so much in the first place," the GOP strategist continued. "Why many of them voted for Biden, or why they don't want to vote for Trump. And so this conviction is raising the salience of Trump's fitness. And I do absolutely think it'll have some effect as long as Democrats are capable of prosecuting this case against Trump.”

Watch the video below, via CNN, or at this link.

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