Better late than never I guess. CNN did something that's been sorely lacking in the media these days, which is to talk to what's left of some of the sane voters in the Republican party who are disgusted with Trump and voted for Nikki Haley in the primary.
Here's how the segment started out from this Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360, with John King traveling to Pennsylvania and interviewing a former Trump voter:
KING: Michael Pesce's first big political statement came 40 years ago.
PESCE: I became a Republican when I turned 18 because of Ronald Reagan. Both my parents were staunch Democrats and I, at the time they were like, we're Democrats we're not Republicans. And I was like no, no, no. I'm a Reagan Republican.
KING: The Philadelphia suburbs were reliably red back then. Pesce, a reluctant piece of why they are much more blue now.
So in 2016, you voted for...
PESCE: Trump.
KING: And in 2020?
PESCE: Biden.
KING: And you've got an election a few months. What are you gonna do?
PESCE: If I had my choice, I wouldn't vote for either, but I will vote for Biden. I will vote for anyone but Trump.
KING: Why?
PESCE: Well, so, he tried to overthrow our government, and that's a problem with me. I served in the US military. I just have very strong feelings about what it means to be an American.
KING: So another big statement this election year, a primary vote for Nikki Haley, six weeks after Donald Trump locked up the nomination.
PESCE: I want other Republicans out there saying, like, we don't have to choose this guy. They don't want to hear that. Okay. He could be a convicted criminal and a couple of day. They don't want to hear that, hey, he did all these things.
As King noted, "Pesce is hardly alone. Haley, one 17% statewide, 24% here in suburban Montgomery county."'
The segment continued with King talking to several more Haley voters, most of whom cannot stomach voting for Trump again who explained their various reasons for their disgust with him.
King wrapped things up discussing the huge numbers of voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia who voted for Haley and what the margins were during the last presidential election, and the fact that it's a "big math problem" for Trump.
We keep hearing about disaffected Biden voters from our corporate media, but we never hear how Trump is going to add to his numbers from the last election, and we almost never hear anyone talk about what these Haley numbers might mean for Trump in the general.
If Biden had numbers in the Democratic primary resembling anything remotely close to what we've seen with Trump and Haley, that's all the media would be talking about during their horserace coverage. It was nice to see CNN pay at least a little attention to this potential problem for Trump.
