Former staffers for the Republican Party’s most recent two presidential nominees before Donald Trump came along have announced their support for current Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The staffers worked for the late Arizona Senator John McCain, who was the GOP’s 2008 nominee, and current Utah Senator Mitt Romney, whose other past experience includes a stint as the governor of Massachusetts and who was the party’s nominee in 2012. An open letter under the heading of “McCain Alums for Joe Biden” has a staggering over 100 former McCain staffers signed on. The open letter from former Romney staffers has 34 folks signed on, as of early Thursday.
In the letter from the former McCain staffers, who worked on his two presidential campaigns and on his Congressional staff, the group writes:
‘Working for John McCain was an honor, and his example of public service remains a lasting influence on us. His motto, ‘country first,’ and his frequent call on Americans to serve causes greater than our self-interest were not empty slogans like so much of our politics today. They were the creed by which he lived and he urged us to do the same. It is in that spirit that we are supporting his friend, Joe Biden.’
In contrast to McCain’s apparent friendship with Biden, President Trump has actually antagonized the late Senator as recently as last week, when he characterized the party’s one-time presidential pick as a “lousy candidate with lots of bad policy.” When McCain was still alive, he opposed the Trump administration on some key points, including its push to unilaterally overturn Obamacare and the president’s consistent capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The former McCain staffers added:
‘Given the incumbent president’s lack of competent leadership, his efforts to aggravate rather than bridge divisions among Americans, and his failure to uphold American values, we believe the election of former Vice President Biden is clearly in the national interest.’
Meanwhile, the former Romney staffers had similar thoughts. They shared:
‘What unites us now is a deep conviction that four more years of a Trump presidency will morally bankrupt this country, irreparably damage our democracy, and permanently transform the Republican Party into a toxic personality cult. We can’t sit by and allow that to happen.’
These two groups are not the only groups of Republicans who have come out against Trump in the lead-up to November. One prominent example of anti-Trump Republicans is The Lincoln Project, a conservative-backed organization that has been releasing a consistent stream of hard-hitting video ads targeting the president and his political allies.
Lots of voters clearly agree with the sentiments that these people are sharing. As of Thursday morning, Biden leads Trump by an average of 7.1 percent in national-level polling, according to RealClearPolitics. He also leads in many key swing states, like Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Electoral college projections from outlets like the Cook Political Report and FiveThirtyEight also give Biden significant advantages heading into November, suggesting that Biden and Democrats across the board who might be buoyed by the affinity for Dems are heading for big wins.
