Media

MSNBC host: Dems who supported Trump are ‘still enthusiastic about’ him

by Joe Concha - 11/10/17 8:31 AM ET

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Friday morning that Democrats who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election are “still enthusiastic about him” despite falling national poll numbers.

Wallace cautioned that while voters in those key Rust Belt states that helped propel Trump to an unexpected victory last year still back the president, a third-party candidate could be a viable contender in 2020.

“I spent the last weekend out with Democrats who had voted for Trump in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and they’re still enthusiastic about him,” Wallace, a former communications director to George W. Bush, said.

“But as much as they love him, you [also] look at the 67 percent of the country that’s appalled by him and repelled by him,” she continued. “I’ve never been a fan, a proponent, a believer that a third party can do anything other than serve as a spoiler for the party with which he or she is most aligned.”

“I think as we sort of all are on our knees, there is an openness to something different,” she later added. “But it would have to be built around competence, not ideology. I think something that repels people is this tribalism, the defending of the indefensible because they’re in your tribe. I think a third party movement would have to be based around that which is competent, not ideological.”

The president’s approval rating stands at 38.2 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of major polls, while 56.9 percent disapprove.

Trump captured the so-called “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016 that polls showed should have been comfortably won by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Ohio was polling in Trump’s direction going into Election Day, even though President Obama won it in 2008 and 2012.

Wallace, who was awarded her own afternoon MSNBC program in May, has been a staunch critic of Trump throughout his presidency.

Tags Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Joe Scarborough Mika Brzezinski Morning Joe Politics of the United States