CHRIS CRUCIAL: The 'begrudging Trump voters'

PLUS: Kamala trolls Donald!

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1. The real debate audience tonight

Two things are true about Donald Trump:

1. He is disliked by about 2/3rds of the electorate

2. Some percentage of people who do not like him are planning to vote for him anyway

Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster and one of the smartest people in politics today, wrote about just those people in the New York Times today. She calls them the “begrudging Trump voters” and of them she writes:

Love him or hate him, people already know how they feel about Mr. Trump. In the Times/Siena poll, only 9 percent of likely voters say they still need to learn more about him. If you like him today, you’re almost certainly choosing him. However, there’s a small group I’ll call “begrudging Trump voters” — those who dislike him but plan to vote for him anyway. In the Times/Siena poll, about 7 percent of those who said they would vote for Mr. Trump fell into this category; he gets their votes even though they also say they think of him unfavorably.

These begrudging Trump voters are the most important audience for Ms. Harris to speak to when the candidates debate on Tuesday night. What does she need to do to sway them? I believe the key will be credibly conveying a sense of confident moderation, as a matter of both ideology and temperament.

I have been searching for a way to describe the anecdotal conversations I have been having with Trump supporters over these past few months. And Kristen nailed it. The VAST majority of them do not like or admire Trump. But they are planning to vote for him because — quite simply — they think he will put more money in their pocket and, more broadly, make the economy hum.

This is by no means an isolated view. In the New York Times/Siena College poll, Trump had a 13-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris when voters were asked who they trusted more to do a “better job” on the economy.

To date, Harris hasn’t done much to distance herself from President Biden — on the economy or anything else. But to reach these “begrudging Trump voters” she needs to.

Starting with the debate tonight, Harris has a chance to show those voters that she is not a) more of the same on the economy (which they DO NOT want) or b) a risky bet who will lurch the country leftward.

As Kristen writes:

For the voters who don’t much like Mr. Trump but lean toward supporting him on policy grounds alone, Ms. Harris will need to convincingly establish herself as an acceptable alternative, a true turning of the page from Mr. Biden, if she’s going to be the candidate for whom they can ultimately get to “yes.”

One last point: There might be a tendency to look at these 7% of “begrudging Trump voters” and think — who needs them? If they can’t see Trump for what he is — and only care about their own financial bottom line — that’s on them.

What I would say to that view is this: ALL indications are that the 2024 race is going to be extremely close. Here’s the latest Washington Post polling averages:

Neither candidate has a lead of more than three points in any of the 7 swing states. Given that, every single group — very much including “begrudging Trump voters” — have to be fought for.

Watch Harris’ message tonight — particularly on the economy — to see if she is taking Kristen’s very good advice.

2. Trolling Trump

One BIG difference between how Joe Biden ran against Donald Trump and how Kamala Harris has chosen to approach the race is that the Vice President is perfectly comfortable trolling the former president.

Take tonight’s debate. Two of Harris’ invited guests will be Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump White House communications director, and Olivia Troye, a former national security official in the Trump administration.

As Politico reports of the move:

It’s part of the campaign’s ongoing effort to use former President Donald Trump’s former allies to get under his skin in the lead-up to Tuesday night’s debate — and as they seek to woo both prominent Republican officials and rank-and-file voters who oppose Trump in what will almost certainly be a close election.

It’s also giving Trump a taste of his own medicine. Back in 2016, Trump brought several women — Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton — who had accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault to his 2nd debate with Hillary Clinton.

Trump even tried to give the women seats in his VIP area at the debate itself. As the New York Times reported:

An extraordinary backstage confrontation between Donald J. Trump’s campaign and the staff of the Presidential Commission on Debates unfolded just minutes before the debate on Sunday night after Mr. Trump tried to give seats in his V.I.P. box to a group of women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of making unwanted sexual advances.

The situation de-escalated only after the commission threatened to call security to remove the women if they tried to sit in the box, where they would have been right next to Mr. Clinton and in Hillary Clinton’s line of sight from the stage — a spectacle that Mr. Trump and his top advisers tried to engineer for maximum shock effect just as tens of millions of people would be tuning in from around the world.

With little other option to avoid a physical scuffle, however, the Trump campaign relented.

So, yeah. Bringing Scaramucci and Troye seems like small potatoes compared to that.

3. Where’s Chris?

By popular request — seriously! — I am going to try to keep people updated on where I am appearing on TV, podcasts and the like.

Tonight at 8:30 pm eastern and 11:30 pm eastern I am doing CBC News out of Canada.

I also did NewsNation this morning — previewing the debate. You can check that appearance out here. And I did a Forbes interview that will be here. I was on Scripps News’ “The Race” at 6:45 pm eastern — and that should be available here.

Tomorrow, I know I am going to do Steve Scully’s show on SiriusXM at 12:40 pm eastern.

You can also always follow me on X, Instagram and even TikTok now! I will regularly update those sites with my latest appearances.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“The debate sort of favors Donald Trump” — Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, setting expectations

ONE TWO GOOD CHART(S)

Both of these charts come via Bubba Atkinson and his very good newsletter.

X is dominated by Republican advertising…

…while Snapchat is a Democratic-centric advertising platform

SONG OF THE DAY

I love The Amplifier, the New York Times twice-weekly music newsletter. (Subscribe if you haven’t!) This week’s edition tries to pin down the song of the summer — offering up 13 nominees. I’ll take “Bass Boat” by Zach Bryan. Damn I love that song.

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