With the first Republican Party 2024 presidential debate less the four weeks away, big-money GOP donors are holding onto their cash in the hope that another candidate breaks from the pack and gives them an alternative to the embattled Donald Trump.
During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” longtime political journalist David Drucker claimed that doubts about whether the indicted former president can be successful in the 2024 general election has dampened enthusiasm for donating early as donors watch for a breakout star who is not named Trump and one who will take the ex-president on.
Speaking with host Jonathan Lemire, Drucker of “The Dispatch” reported, “I spoke to three Republican donors last week who jumped in early for [former Gov.] Nikki Haley but when I checked with them about their colleagues, other wealthy Republican donors, the kind that write big checks to super PACs and I said, where are they right now?”
“And where they are is different than donors were in 2016, the last open primary,” he continued. “In the last open primary, you had donors picking their favorite candidate, knowing even if it wasn’t their horse that won in the end, they were going to be able to get behind the eventual nominee and be happy about it. This time the broad consensus among Republican donors is that they want anybody other than Trump, and a lot of them are going to wait to see if one emerges.”
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“They don’t want to contribute to a split field, even though there is a split field without them,” he elaborated. “But they don’t want to give anybody false hope and financial life in this race, keeping them around so the field continues to stay split. What they’re hoping is that over time a sort of consensus alternative emerges.”
“Again, they don’t care so much necessarily whether they like the Republican that emerges in that position, they just want someone to emerge, then they’d get behind him and hope they can do some damage,” he added.
MSNBC 07 31 2023 07 06 51
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