According to a new poll, nearly half of Republicans say they will leave the Republican Party to join a third-party created and led by former President Donald Trump. That doesn't bode well for the Republican establishment.
The new poll by Suffolk University-USA Today found a whopping 46 percent of Republicans are willing to leave the GOP in order to a join new party created by Donald Trump. Just 27 percent of Republicans said they would stick with the GOP, and the rest are undecided.
"We feel like Republicans don't fight enough for us, and we all see Donald Trump fighting for us as hard as he can, every single day," said Brandon Keidl, a 27-year-old Republican and small-business owner from Milwaukee. "But then you have establishment Republicans who just agree with establishment Democrats and everything, and they don't ever push back."
No wonder establishment Republicans jumped at the opportunity to disqualify the former president from running for office again. Nearly half of GOP voters are willing to abandon ship to join a new Trump party.
And Republican voters aren't looking the other way when it comes to GOP lawmakers who supported the failed second impeachment against Trump. Eight in 10 Republicans said they are less likely to vote for a Republican politician who supported impeachment. Ten House GOP members aligned themselves with Democrats to impeach Trump, and seven GOP senators did the same in the Senate. Many of the defecting Republicans are now facing censures and primary challenges back at home.
The poll also found that a large majority of Republicans aren't overlooking voting irregularities in November's election either. Some 73 percent of Republicans said Biden wasn't legitimately elected president, and most Republicans don't want to see their elected representatives cooperating with a president they consider illegitimate.
A third party sure sounds like a losing strategy, but so does the Republican establishment. The polls seem to show that a large majority of Republicans simply want someone like Trump to fight for them every day. People are tired of Republicans who seem to only have a spine when it comes to denouncing their fellow Republicans.