As Joe Biden continues to try to chase Donald Trump to win re-election, some Republicans who voted for him in 2020 are struggling to commit to switching sides for a second time.
Poll after poll has shown that President Biden has trouble against Trump in their 2024 rematch, both nationally and in key swing states.
Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut who voted for Biden in 2020, now says he is “unlikely” to make the jump to the presidency again this November.
He asked: “Many of us are struggling with the question of how we can support him when he has gone so far to the left.”
Shays, who served in the House from 1987 to 2009, is now considering voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As Joe Biden continues to try to chase Donald Trump to win re-election, some Republicans who voted for him in 2020, like Christopher Shays (pictured), are struggling to commit to switching sides for a second time.
According to a New York Times report, Shays shares the sentiments of many Republicans who went for Biden in 2020, saying they felt largely ignored during his tenure.
The latest blow to Biden’s efforts to court the Republican Party: Nikki Haley’s admission that she will vote for Trump.
“Haley’s endorsement of Trump is a blow,” said Adam Kinzinger, the former anti-Trump congressman who served on the Jan. 6 committee.
“If you don’t have other Republicans creating a permitting structure for those people to vote Democratic, I don’t know how you expect to get many of them.”
He says he hasn’t heard much from the Biden campaign about helping and says if they don’t try to use him to get Republican support, “it’s political malpractice.”
Former Republican and former congressman David Jolly says there were responses in a recent email sent to Republicans that surprised him.
“My eyes were opened at the level of anger and disgust towards Biden, really,” he said. “There is real disappointment in Biden’s political direction.”
Biden touted support from Republicans such as Kinzinger, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in 2020.
It comes as a new poll shows Trump and Biden neck and neck in New Hampshire, the latest in a series of polls raising warning signs for the struggling president as the general election season heats up.
Poll after poll has shown President Biden in trouble against Trump in their 2024 rematch
However, New York Republican and former congresswoman Susan Molinari, who spoke on Biden’s behalf at the 2020 Democratic Convention, echoes that there has been little outreach.
“I’m concerned about the state of the campaign, that there has been little to no outreach to almost every Republican I know who wants to help,” he said.
He added that while he will vote for Biden again, “I think everyone is scratching their heads.”
Republicans such as former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who served in the Obama-Biden administration, and former congressmen Jim Greenwood and Claudine Schneider say they continue to support the president.
It comes as a new poll shows Trump and Biden neck and neck in New Hampshire, the latest in a series of polls raising warning signs for the struggling president as the general election season heats up.
Biden won the Granite State by more than seven points in 2020, with almost sixty thousand more votes than Trump.
But New Hampshire Journal/Praecones Analytica Poll finds the pair tied in the state with less than six months until Election Day.
Trump has 36.6 percent among registered voters, while Biden has 36.5 percent in the state.
The latest blow to Biden’s efforts to court the GOP: Nikki Haley’s admission that she will vote for Trump
“Haley’s endorsement of Trump is a blow,” said Adam Kinzinger, the former anti-Trump congressman who served on the Jan. 6 committee.
According to the poll, independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. obtains 14.6 percent of the vote.
Biden is struggling with undecided voters in the famously independent-thinking state, according to Praecones Analytica’s Jonathan Klinger.
“While registered voters of both parties are largely united behind their candidate, independent/undeclared voters are splitting their support in four statistically indistinguishable ways: between Biden, Trump, Kennedy and other unnamed candidates,” Klingler said to the New Hampshire Journal.
He noted that compared to exit polls in the 2020 presidential election, independent/undeclared voters in the state show significantly less support for Biden.
