If Republicans had any hope of Donald Trump tempering his hard-line rhetoric in an effort to win back more moderate voters he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, his post-conviction messaging shows he may be unwilling to do so. | Rick Scuteri/APIn the days since his criminal conviction in New York, Donald Trump has warned that placing him under house arrest would push America to a “breaking point.” He has suggested that if reelected, he could try to prosecute his political enemies.
“The former president is never going to get away from those components of his rhetoric,” said John Watson, a former Georgia Republican Party chair. “He has made a decision that this is how he wants to litigate this election.” “And I hope he is,” Bacon said. “Ninety percent already have their mind made , but that 10 percent is important.”
That bore out in a focus group Longwell conducted the day after the verdict with nine two-time Trump voters who were already unlikely to cast their ballots for him again. They saw the conviction, she said, “as just more confirmation of how unfit he is.” “Look at his fundraising,” Rep. Ralph Norman , a longtime friend of Haley who endorsed her in the GOP primary, told POLITICO. “People know what they’re doing to him is wrong. Let him keep doing that. Let him put him in jail. See how that works out.”