Trump indictments aren’t helping him win key swing voters: former Obama advisor

Former President Donald Trump has been completely undeterred by his criminal indictments in New York and Florida, and the possibility of another round of charges in the January 6 investigation. If anything, his poll numbers among Republican primary voters have actually gone up since then, with him leading the runner-up of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 30 points.

But this strength might be an illusion, said former President Obama strategist David Plouffe on MSNBC Tuesday — Trump is likely in trouble with the specific categories of voters who will decide the election. And that could be part of why he is leaning on House Republicans to open impeachment hearings against President Joe Biden.

"I wanted to start just with discussing — I mean, sometimes even things that are for show, like this impeachment, like Kevin McCarthy floating this impeachment, are things you should take seriously," said anchor Jen Psaki, who previously worked alongside Plouffe in government. "So, is this something that President Biden, anyone in the White House should be worried about?"

"Well, as you know, Jen, having worked in the building, you need to be worried about everything," said Plouffe. "That's what makes it so unrelenting. I mean, there's no chance, obviously, the Senate conviction. I think the public will largely see this as a waste of their money and time. And further tarnish the Republican brand. But obviously, you want to have the right people, you know, from a legal standpoint saying the right thing."

When it comes to Trump's prospects in the election, he continued, "when you think about states like Wisconsin, Arizona, you know, Georgia, Michigan, nobody who runs for president wins without winning the center of the electorate, the moderate vote."

"This is the type of thing all of these indictments, impeachment, will Trump will seem like the ringleader, may help them in the Republican primary," added Plouffe. "But at the end of the day... will there be a single vote that might have gone, you know, let's say Joe Biden's way that will go Trump's way after all of the indictments and after the spectacle of impeachment, I don't think so. So this has been, I think, we are really going on multiple decades now where the Republicans are captive to a small percentage of the American public, but it drives their primary process. And they're further and further away from middle of the American electorate."

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