'We Only Care About Damaging Donald Trump'
CONCORD, New Hampshire — At a rally in New Hampshire this week, Donald Trump railed against liberal efforts to “infiltrate” the state’s upcoming Republican primary, accusing Democrats and Never Trump conservatives of conspiring to elect Nikki Haley.
On its surface, it sounded a lot like another of Trump’s conspiracy-laden tirades — but in reality, the former president wasn’t entirely off the mark. In recent months, a handful of left-leaning groups have popped up across New Hampshire with the goal of persuading the state’s “undeclared” voters — who make up 42 percent of the voting population and are eligible to vote in either party’s primary — to back Haley.
One of those groups, Primary Pivot, is run by Robert Schwartz, a liberal activist who has spent his career countering democratic backsliding in countries across Latin America. The organization’s rationale is simple, Schwartz told me when I spoke to him this week: If Trump poses an extraordinary threat to American democracy — as many liberals and left-leaning independents believe — then those same voters should embrace extraordinary methods to stop him. And in New Hampshire, Schwartz believes, the most effective tactic to stop Trump is for liberal and independents to vote for Haley.
“We only care about damaging Donald Trump,” said Schwartz. “For better or for worse, the only thing you can do if you really want to stop Trump is to vote for Haley.”
By his own admission, Schwartz’s crusade is a long shot. As of October, when New Hampshire requires voters to select their party affiliation, just 3,500 people had switched their registration from Democratic to undeclared — it will take many, many more undeclared voters to cast a ballot for Haley next week to make a noticeable dent in Trump’s polling lead. History, moreover, is not on Schwartz’ side: Similar efforts to mobilize New Hampshire’s undeclared voters in 2020 and 2016 came up notably short. (Similarly, in 2008 Rush Limbaugh launched "Operation Chaos" to delay the Democrats settling on a nominee.)
But in our conversation, Schwartz explained why he thinks 2024 might be different.
The following has been edited for clarity and concision.
Is there any indication that your strategy is working?
I think the fact that over 3,500 Democrats became undeclared before the October deadline was one initial indicator. The other indicator is that we've heard in surveys that the top issue for over 90 percent of left-leaning undeclared voters is stopping Donald Trump. And then the third is that, anecdotally, I have been in so many conversations with people who say, ‘Oh, I'm a Democrat and I missed the registration deadline, but I wish I could have changed over to vote in the Republican primary.’ Almost all the undeclared voters that I have talked to — and I........
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