Koch endorsement shows donor class still prefers Trump to populist alternative
Conn Carroll
Video Embed
Seven years ago, Republican donors failed to coalesce around an alternative to Donald Trump, allowing a candidate who was under 30% nationally as late as February 2016 to walk away with the nomination as a divided field could never top his celebrity power.
This cycle, Trump is in a stronger position, but, particularly in the early states, he is still below a majority of Republican support. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is best positioned to beat Trump, especially in Iowa. The problem for other candidates, especially Nikki Haley, is that DeSantis voters prefer Trump as their second choice, while Haley voters support DeSantis.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE MUST BE BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL
This means that if Haley would exit the race, DeSantis would gain ground on Trump as more Haley supporters would join DeSantis, but if DeSantis were to exit, Trump would benefit since more DeSantis supporters would move to Trump. Haley simply has no credible path to the nomination.
The reality is that Haley is a great candidate for a Republican Party that doesn’t exist anymore. A generation ago, she would have been the perfect candidate for a party that supported President George W. Bush’s push for amnesty in 2007. Elements of that party are still around, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who helped write the bill with Sen. Ted Kennedy. But most are not. Of the 12 Republican senators who voted for that bill, only Graham remains.
Haley is still stuck in the 2007 GOP mindset. Here she is on the trail in New Hampshire. “When it comes to legal immigration, it’s a broken system. It shouldn’t take someone 10 years to become a citizen. … For too long, Republican and Democrat presidents dealt with immigration based on a quota. ‘We’ll take X number this year. We’ll take X number next year.’ The debate is on the number. It’s the wrong way to look at it. We need to do it based on merit. We need to go to our industries and say, ‘What do you need that you don’t have?’ So, think of agriculture. Think tourism. Think tech. We want the talent that is going to make us better. Then you can bring people in that can fill those needs.”
This is absolutely how most Republican donors viewed immigration in 2007, it is how the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, and Big Tech view the topic today, and it is the same view shared by the Koch brothers-founded Americans for Prosperity, which endorsed Haley on Tuesday.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The problem is most Republican primary voters don’t agree. Haley’s call for big business to set immigration levels is no different than an open border. Big business will always opt for cheap foreign labor over paying higher wages to American workers. Republican primary voters want no part of that policy.
While many Republicans don’t want Trump to run again, they also don’t want to turn the party over to the interests of Wall Street and Big Tech on immigration. For all his other faults as a candidate, DeSantis has a proven track record of choosing American voters over big business on immigration. That’s why so many Trump voters say they would support DeSantis as a second choice. That’s why Haley has no shot at beating Trump.