According to a new poll released Sunday, Republicans by double-digit margins said they were willing to leave their party to follow former President Donald Trump if it explodes on their own.
Republican Party members, 46% to 27%, said they would put the Republican Party in the rearview mirror if Trump creates his own account, according to a USA Today / Suffolk University poll.
“We feel like Republicans don’t fight hard enough for us and we all see Donald Trump fighting for us all he can, every day,” said Brandon Keidl, 27, a Republican and small business owner from Milwaukee. the interviewers.
“But then you have Republicans in the establishment who only agree with the Democrats in the establishment and everything, and who never back down,” he said.
Half of the respondents said they thought the Republican party should be “more loyal to Trump,” even if that means losing the support of those who make up the Republican Party establishment.
19% said the party should move away from Trump.
The poll showed that Trump’s support remains strong since he was acquitted in a Senate indictment for encouraging his supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Trump will deliver the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on February 28th.
He will talk about “the future of the Republican Party and the Conservative movement.”
Trump, who has welcomed Republican lawmakers to his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort since President Biden opened on Jan. 20, vowed to retaliate against members of the GOP congress who did not support him during the dismissal hearings.
Earlier this month, he criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as a “non-smiling political pirate” who should be fired.
“The Republican party can never be more respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Senator Mitch McConnell at the helm,” Trump said in a statement.
McConnell (R-Ky.) Voted to acquit Trump of the “incitement to insurrection,” but provoked his anger when he said the former president was “practically and morally responsible” for the chaos in a speech on the floor moments after.
In the House, 10 Republicans voted to contest while seven senators crossed the aisle to condemn it.
Eighty percent of Republicans in the poll said they would not support a Republican candidate who voted to condemn, a show of strong support for Trump, who said he would try to recruit candidates to run in the election. primary.
Francis Zovko, 63, a Republican from Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania, told pollsters that Trump does not need to create a third party.
“I think he’s only going to take over the Republican party, as he already did in 2016,” he said. “Everyone thought it was a big joke and in the end they weren’t laughing anymore.”
The poll polled 1,000 Trump voters between Feb. 15 and 19.
It has a margin of error of about 3.1 percentage points.