'Something terribly wrong': Top GOP donor rips Trump for latest 'self-destructive' decision

28 August 2024

Former President Donald Trump is increasingly courting the fringe instead of the middle, which could potentially cost him the November election. That's according to an email from frustrated Republican donor and reluctant Trump voter Eric LeVine.

Jewish Insider reporter Matthew Kassel first tweeted the email on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, which LeVine sent after the former president announced he was adding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate-turned Fox News regular Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team. According to LeVine — who supported former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primary — those two additions were a significant blunder to Trump's ability to appeal to undecided voters.

"RFK is an anti-vax kook who sees conspiracies behind every tree and under ever bed, and Gabbard is the former vice-chair of the DNC," Levine wrote. "There is something terribly wrong with this picture... It is hard to imagine a more self-destructive announcement."

"Rather than seeking and coveting the endorsement of fringe candidates with fringe policy positions that offend most Republicans and Independents, Trump would be better served by announcing he has added Nikki Haley to the transition team," he continued. "It is her voters he should be focused on."

As LeVine noted, Haley's bloc of voters is a not-insignificant chunk of the Republican base. And late into the primary, well after Haley dropped out of the race, thousands of Republican voters still voted for her in their state's respective primaries. This includes must-win battleground states like Georgia and Pennsylvania. Like President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris has made overtures to the moderate bloc of the GOP, and the Democratic National Convention featured primetime speeches each night from lifelong Republicans explaining why they couldn't support Trump's third bid for the White House.

"[Harris'] entire campaign strategy is to appeal to Haley voters, independents and women; Reagan voters. These should be solid Trump voters," LeVine wrote. "Yet, they are up for grabs because Trump seems to be laser focused on narrowing his base rather than expanding it."

"As a former Haley voter and Reagan Republican, I say to you Mr. Trump, speak to me and my fellow Republicans," he added. "Reject the fringes. Fight for the middle. If you do not, you will forever be known from this day forward, as the 'Former president.'"

Whoever wins the 2024 election will have to win the electoral college votes of roughly a dozen closely contested states that flipped from Obama to Trump, and from Trump to Biden, over the course of the last few election cycles. This includes states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, whose Electoral College votes were decided by a few thousand total ballots statewide. This suggests that whoever wins over Haley's considerable bloc of voters could end up with a narrow Electoral College majority in November.

In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton narrowly lost the election after Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all narrowly went for Trump by less than 78,000 votes across all three states. And in 2020, Biden won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by less than 50,000 total ballots. Those states, in addition to Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District (Nebraska allocates electoral votes by congressional district) gave Biden the edge over Trump four years ago.

Read the full letter in Kassel's tweet below, or by clicking this link.

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