Former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign Matthew Dowd said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports” that the new Republican Party is reflected best by former President Donald Trump.
On Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign, Dowd said, “Well, she’s running in the wrong party. I mean, that’s the problem she has. It’s like the Republican Party that she’s running from and appealing to no longer exists. And it’s amazing to me, maybe she’s realized that, and she thinks going through this process will somehow get her to the other side, and then she’ll be available.”
He continued, “I think the problem is multifold for her. One is from Iowa to New Hampshire, and now the polls in South Carolina, she is losing Republican self-identified voters by 40 plus points in the course of this. You can’t win a Republican nomination losing Republicans by 40 or 50 points. And she’s going to lose among Republican voters in South Carolina by 40 to 50 points in this. This race, as far as a nomination process, is basically over. I think she has to come to the realization, which people like Mitt Romney came to and other Republicans have come to, is that the Republican Party that they once knew no longer is the Republican Party today.”
Dowd added, “Donald Trump didn’t change the Republican Party fundamentally. Donald Trump is a reflection of what the Republican Party comes to. And so, post-Donald Trump, they’re not going to go to Nikki Haley. They’re going to go to a new version of Donald Trump in the aftermath. And I think that’s the process. It’s like five stages of grief for all these Republicans that have to go through. And it takes them a while until they get to the point.”
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