Biden’s battle to secure backing of anti-Trump Republicans

President Joe Biden’s allies are stepping up a charm offensive aimed at convincing prominent Republicans and donors who won’t support Donald Trump to support the Democratic president.

But the task is proving difficult, according to people familiar with the matter.

As of Thursday, Biden had yet to secure the support of nationally recognized Republican Party officials.

Meanwhile, several major Republican-leaning political donors who supported former presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign are holding back, at least for now, as they decide whether to support Biden.

“Winning campaigns build coalitions, and that’s the North Star of this campaign for every day between now and November: winning the support of the voters who will decide this race,” the spokesperson for the campaign told CNBC on Wednesday. Biden campaign, Kevin Munoz.

For Biden, there is Republican support that would dwarf all others. But it is far from being the case.

Some of Biden’s donors who also supported Haley in her primary challenge to Trump have tried to privately encourage her to support Biden, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Like others in this story, they were granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

As of Thursday, Biden and his top campaign advisers had not contacted Haley or members of his team about a possible endorsement, they said. And it wasn’t clear whether Haley responded to her former contributors’ requests for outreach.

An adviser to a Democratic Biden donor who was aware of Haley’s approach described the campaign to win her support for Biden as a “nearly impossible task.”

For Haley, supporting Biden could mean sacrificing any future political prospects in a Republican Party increasingly controlled by Trump.

A spokeswoman for Haley did not respond to emails seeking comment.

In the coming months, the Biden team plans to reach out to other Republicans who have clashed with Trump, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyo., and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, according to a person familiar with the matter .

A “Republicans for Biden” group could be finalized before the Democratic National Convention in July.

Although neither Haley, Cheney or Christie have endorsed Biden, each of them has previously denounced Trump in public.

Cheney appears to have come closer than any other high-profile Republican to vocally supporting Biden against Trump — although without officially supporting the president.

“I will do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump,” she said recently in an interview with CNN. A spokesperson for Cheney did not respond to a request for comment.

The Biden team believes that high-profile endorsements would likely make the biggest difference later in the election cycle, once the president has consolidated support among his Democratic base and established a stark contrast with Trump.

In recent weeks, the president has traveled to key states to mobilize key Democratic voters and highlight his administration’s successes. At the same time, his campaign strengthened state staff and offices on the ground.

As Biden’s campaign builds an operation that will likely cost north of $1 billion when all is said and done, Biden is looking to fill his campaign coffers with money from anti-Trump Republican donors.

Biden outsold Trump by tens of millions of dollars in the first quarter of 2024. But a newly created joint Republican fundraising committee, capable of accepting donations of up to $814,600 per person, could begin making tilt the scales in favor of Trump.

Efforts are already underway by wealthy Biden donors to recruit Haley bundlers and contributors. But as for obtaining support, here too things seem difficult.

Some Haley donors cited policy disagreements with the Democratic administration as one of the main reasons they couldn’t yet commit to Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.

But others already seem more willing to give money to Biden than support Trump.

Some Haley sellers said a gift from Haley left them with the impression that the former South Carolina governor hoped they wouldn’t donate to Trump, one of the people said.

Shortly after Haley withdrew from the GOP primary on Mach 6, she sent campaign T-shirts to some of her bundlers with the words “permanently banned” on them.

The shirt referenced Trump’s notorious threat that anyone who gave money to Haley would be “permanently kicked out of the MAGA camp.”

But another person familiar with the t-shirts never intended to send any message other than to say “Thank you” to his supporters.

George Conway, a former Republican and vocal opponent of Trump, recently gave $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund and said he plans to attend a dinner for the committee on April 26.

The Biden Victory Fund raises money for the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee and dozens of state parties.

Conway told CNBC that the party’s co-hosts are mostly Democrats, but he plans to “try to bring in more apostates.”

It was unclear Thursday whether any other current or former Republicans planned to attend.

“Everyone, including Republican voters who reject Trump’s chaos, division and violence, has a place in President Biden’s campaign,” said Munoz, the Biden campaign aide.

Yet even as some Haley Republicans signal they want to take a break, for now, from presidential politics, other parts of the Never Trump universe want Biden to speed things up.

For these Republicans, Biden’s current efforts don’t go far enough to re-engage Haley’s disenchanted voters, many of whom have already experienced major disappointment this year.

“There were (approximately) 76,000 votes for Nikki Haley last night in (the Wisconsin primary),” wrote Never Trump political consultant and former Reagan administration aide Bill Kristol.

“Biden won WI by (approximately) 20,000 votes in 2020. Republican voters against Trump matter,” he added in the X post. “A little more outreach from the Biden team to of these voters might not be a bad idea.”

Kristol’s nonprofit, Defending Democracy Together, is helping fund a $50 million ad campaign from a group called Republican Voters Against Trump. The ads will feature former Trump voters explaining why they decided not to vote for him again.

Mike Madrid, co-founder of the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, told CNBC that Republicans ready to play a role in the 2024 election are still waiting for guidance from Biden’s team.

“Most interactions with the Biden campaign have been informal so far, as most donors, elected officials and campaign professionals seek direction,” Madrid said.

“We are waiting for marching orders,” he said.

While some of Bidenland’s key players are busy courting individual Republicans, other members of Biden’s team are devising ways to connect with Haley’s thousands of disillusioned supporters across the country.

The Biden campaign recently launched an ad encouraging Haley’s supporters to support Biden over Trump. A political action committee called “Haley Voters for Biden” is trying to convince Haley voters to support Biden over Trump, according to Semafor.

The effort to convert opposition to Trump into support for Biden comes at a crucial time for the president, who may need these voters and their donations to win re-election in November.

An average of Real Clear Politics polls showed Thursday that Biden and Trump were virtually tied in the race for the White House.

Whoever wins the presidency in November will most likely have to make major inroads with Haley’s former supporters to do so. Polls showed that Haley’s primary voters tended to be more centrist, educated and wealthy than average.

If the Biden campaign succeeds in converting individual anti-Trump figures into Biden supporters, the manner in which they did so could hold important lessons for the Biden team going forward.

Over the next six months, Biden’s 2024 operation will potentially need to win over millions of anti-Trump Republican and independent voters in key battleground states. Many of them will be the same voters who helped — or would have helped — lead Haley into the GOP primary.