Fox News host Jesse Watters argues former President Trump needs to rally Independent voters to win in 2024 on "Jesse Watters Primetime."
JESSE WATTERS: The general election started last night. Trump versus Biden. But one woman is standing in the way: Nikki Haley. So, the revenge tour will be making a slight detour through South Carolina.
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Is "Nikki Mirage" a little sabotage? Because how much of the Haley vote is a vessel for Democrats? And how much of the Haley vote is a vessel for never-Trump Republicans? I'm sure Nikki has a small faction of earnest Republicans. We don't doubt that. But we won't know the truth for a month. In between New Hampshire and South Carolina, Nikki and Trump will be getting their licks in at each other while Biden hides and expands his war chest. So that means it's going to be a messy month for Trump and Republicans. What's the Nikki strategy? Well, the theory is that East Coast kingmakers, or queen makers rather, with deep pockets, will be financing Nikki through Super Tuesday so she can collect enough delegates to leverage herself onto the ticket.
Now, the bank rollers will be using blunt force trauma to the head to create Republican Party unity and tee up Nikki for VP. And then POTUS in '28. This is a long shot for a lot of reasons. We get it. We don't need to get into all of it, but it's all moot. If Trump can blow Nikki out so spectacularly in the Palmetto State, the donors get alligator arms. Nikki loses her juice, and then she limps into the convention as an insurance policy in case Trump's court cases throw us a curveball.
So here's Trump's task: unite the party like he did in 2020, when 94% of Republicans turned out. Biden did the same thing, 95% of Democrats turned out then. But a quarter of the country are Independents. Now, last time, both Biden and Trump came to that election with equal bases. But Biden won Independents by 13 points, and that was the difference. So Trump now has to unite his party with charm, a little muscle and an air of inevitability and then rally the independents. Well, how does he do that? Policy. Trump dominates Biden on every major policy issue: economy, immigration, crime, foreign policy. So if Trump stays calm and stays on message, he wins because Democrats won't be talking about policy this election. It'll be racism, personality and dictatorship.
