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 …

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.”

    • @[email protected]
      5•1 year ago

      Your first sentence, about the Republicans need to protect Trump. The image is of fasces, the Italian word for a collection of rods (loyalists) bundled around an axe handle (Trump). The purpose of the rods is to take damage for the axe handle to protect it when the axe misses, because the axe is where the “power” is. As such, the rods are disposable, whether they know it or not. The word fasces is where term Fascism derived from

      • @[email protected]
        1•1 year ago

        I figured, but that’s the point, Trump is not only disposable but it’d be in their best interest to dispose of him, just like the Grand Council of Fascism/Victor Emmanuel deposed Mussolini for being an incompetent fuckwit.

        Even the ideology allows for it, anything and any action can be justified for the goal of strengthening the state.

        • @[email protected]
          3•1 year ago

          I mean, it’s all social constructs. To Trump supporters, Trump should be the state, regardless of any puppeteer’s intentions. And right now Trump is indisposable to the GOP, but only because his followers believe he is, or because his followers believe that enough of the other followers believe it that they have little choice but to play along to stay in the game. It’s a fragile, imaginary power, but it’s also very real. It’s certainly in their best interest to bail from Trump, but we’ll see if they will. That’s what makes fascism so cult-y. The axe doesn’t even have to be real, you just need to convince the fasces