Politico reports that its “survey of more than two dozen local Republican Party leaders in counties where 2018’s most competitive races are shaping up,” found that “the GOP grassroots aren’t fazed by news of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting last year with a Kremlin-linked lawyer or the daily drip of stories about Trump and Russia.”
Politico correctly points out this is a problem for Democrats, who will need to win over the support of some Trump-backing Republican voters in the battleground congressional districts where the House majority will be decided in 2018.
Here is a sampling of Politico’s surveyed GOP leaders:
- Carl Bunce, chairman of the Las Vegas-based GOP in Nevada’s Clark County – “It’s pretty much a non-issue. Most people that do reference it, reference it as a witch hunt. It’s a one-sided thing: ‘Trump, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.’ It’s just all noise to people on the ground here. People on the ground are just concerned about job security. It’s almost embarrassing for the media from my perspective. Move on. I’m sure they could find something else to report on.”
- Tony Krvaric, San Diego County Republican Party Chairman – “Democrats and their allies in the media are actually doing the country a disservice with their ‘scandal each day’ narrative. While it’s like catnip for the elites and it keeps pundits busy, regular people tune it out.”
- Vlad Davidiuk, a senior official in Texas’ Harris County GOP – “The story with Don Jr. falls into the category of being taken with a grain of salt, or several grains of salt. People are reserving judgment.”
- Roxie Armstrong, GOP chair of Kansas’ suburban Wyandotte County – “There are certainly much more important issues.”
The conclusions Politico takes away from their survey are that among Republicans at the local level, the latest revelations that the Political elite and commentariate obsess over, are little more than a product of sore loser Democrat overreach. It reinforces the belief that the media continues to act as the biased media wing of the Democrats’ Party and can’t be trusted.
Similarly, Reuters reports that interviews with 20 people in Ohio towns that went heavily for the President last year found them “dismissive of the barrage of headlines” about Trump Jr.’s emails and the meeting. One of Reuters’ interviewees said, “I don’t mind Donald Trump being treated critically or aggressively, but not in a way that is an effort to drag him down. Donald Trump Jr. had one 20-minute meeting with a lawyer from Russia and it’s wall-to-wall coverage.”