Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume appeared on Special Report Wednesday — and he had some harsh words for former President Donald Trump and for the GOP’s primary voters.
Special Report guest host Rich Edson began by asking Hume about Trump’s place as leader in the GOP primary.
“Part of his challengers’ argument is that if you go back to the 2018 election, every two years with Trump as either the titular head or actual head of the Republican Party, Republicans have underperformed in those national elections,” Edson shot back.
“And yet, when you look at the polling, it shows that Republican voters believe that he’s gonna win and part of the appeal of Donald Trump is that he is a winner. Where does that disconnect go and how can Trump’s opponents make that case that perhaps on winnability that that’s an issue?”
A presidential candidate, Trump is commanding 52 percent of the primary electorate, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll aggregate. By contrast, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is netting less than 24 percent.
Hume said, “Well, those losses in the midterms and eventually the presidency are… disappointing performances and losses. They’re real. They happened. There’s no doubt about it. There’s no way around it. And the case can be made that he’s a loser because since he got elected in 2016, he’s compiled a string of them – either he or his supported candidate have lost too many races.”
Trump endorsed some losing candidates in last year’s midterm elections. In Pennsylvania’s GOP primaries, Trump endorsed television personality Mehmet Oz over CEO David McCormick. Oz won the GOP’s primary, but he lost the general election to Democrat John Fetterman. In the end, Pennsylvania’s Senate seat became the only one to change parties that year.
Anti-Trump Republicans, like Hume, have blamed Trump for the GOP’s underperformance in last year’s midterm elections.
On the other hand, some GOP staffers have argued that Trump didn’t force anyone to vote for Oz. Trump simply endorsed his preferred candidate, and primary voters supported Oz by their own accord.
In fact, the primary voters didn’t always listen to Trump. In Georgia’s GOP primaries, the voters backed incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp over his Trump-endorsed challenger, former Sen. David Purdue. On the same ballot, the voters backed incumbent State Secretary Brad Raffensperger over another one of Trump’s picks.
Hume went on to slam Republican primary voters.
“The history of primaries suggests that people don’t cast strategic votes,” Hume said. “By and large, they don’t. Right now, people are voting their hearts and they tend to vote in primaries where the candidates that they feel closest to,” Hume said.
“They’re not voting about who they think could get elected. That may come back to haunt the Republican party in 2024 because you look at the Democrats and what they think of the race. They think that Trump is gonna win the nomination. And they think Biden will beat him because he did beat him.”
Hume also waffled on whether the non-Trump candidates were simply running some lackluster campaigns.
“To look at the persistence of Trump’s lead — and it’s been in this range for many, many weeks now — you’d almost believe that the old rules of politics, of how you win elections, have been repealed,” Hume said.
“The other candidates are doing the conventional things, and the numbers haven’t budged. Maybe they will, but they look pretty daunting in Trump’s favor right now. I’m not sure how long that will last, but it’s lasted a long time so far.”
Take a look —
Fox News’ @brithume: “Looking at the persistence of Trump’s lead in the polls for many weeks now, you would almost believe the old rules of politics about how you win elections have been repealed” pic.twitter.com/J4skRg5JhZ
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) July 5, 2023
The Horn editorial team