Just under half of likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers who support former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley indicated that they would make a crossover to the Democratic party, saying that they would rather vote for President Biden over former President Trump.
A new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll released just one day before the Iowa caucuses found that 43 percent of Haley backers in the state said they would vote for Biden if Trump is the GOP nominee, while 23 percent say they would vote for the former president. Eight percent said they would vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Overall, 71 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers said they would vote for Trump in 2024, while only 11 percent said they would vote for Biden.
“Haley is consolidating the anti-Trump vote,” J. Ann Selzer, a pollster who has conducted the Iowa survey over the last three decades, told NBC. “She does well with the people who define themselves as anti-Trump.”
In the event that Trump is in prison, or has a heart attack next month, or whatever, you’d see a depression among MAGA voters in the election. They wouldn’t be enthusiastic and plenty of them would stay home. Trump gets really big turnout in these types and total votes would go below 2012 Republican numbers. For instance in 2020 Trump got 74 million votes. In 2012 Romney got 60 million. In 2008 McCain got 59 million. It’s not that 14 million people shifted to the right after 2012, it’s that they all came out to vote.