‘Almost impossible’: Inside Biden’s uphill battle to win the backing of key anti-Trump Republicans

Allies of President Joe Biden are ramping up a charm offensive aimed at getting high-profile Republicans and donors who won’t support Donald Trump to back the Democratic president. 

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

As of Thursday, Biden had not yet secured any endorsements from nationally recognized Republican Party officials.

Meanwhile, several major Republican leaning political donors who backed former presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley‘s campaign are holding back, at least for now, as they make up their minds whether to back Biden.

“Winning campaigns build coalitions, and that is this campaign’s north star for every single day between now and November — earning the support of the voters who will decide this race,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz told CNBC in an email Wednesday.

For Biden, there is one Republican endorsement that would outshine all the others. But it is a long shot.

A few of Biden’s donors who also backed Haley in her primary challenge to Trump have tried to privately encourage her to endorse 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 senior campaign advisers had not connected with Haley or members of her team about a possible endorsement, they explained. And it was unclear if Haley has responded to any of the outreach from her past contributors.

One adviser to a Democratic Biden donor who was aware of this outreach to Haley described the campaign to win her support for Biden as an “almost impossible task.” 

For Haley, endorsing Biden could mean sacrificing any future political prospects she has in a Republican Party that is increasingly controlled by Trump. 

A spokeswoman for Haley did not return emails seeking comment. 

In the coming months, the Biden team plans to reach out to other Republicans who have taken on 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 ahead of the Democratic National Convention in July.

While 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 over Trump — albeit without officially endorsing the president. 

“I’m gonna do whatever is necessary to defeat Donald Trump,” she said in a recent CNN interview. A spokesman for Cheney did not return a request for comment. 

The Biden team believes that big named endorsements would likely make the biggest difference later in the election cycle, after the president has firmed up support within his Democratic base and drawn a sharp contrast with Trump.

In recent weeks, the president has been traveling to key states to activate core Democratic voters and highlight his administration’s record of success. At the same time, his campaign has been scaling up its battleground state staff and offices. 

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

Biden outraised Trump by tens of millions of dollars during the first quarter of 2024. But a newly created Republican joint fundraising committee that can accept donations of up to $814,600 per person may begin to tilt the scales in Trump’s favor.

There is already an effort underway by wealthy Biden donors to recruit Haley’s bundlers and contributors. But similar to gaining endorsements, here too, things appear tough.

Some Haley donors cited policy disagreements with the Democratic administration as a big reason they couldn’t commit to Biden yet, according to people familiar with the matter.

But others already appear more open to donating money to Biden than they are to supporting Trump.

Some Haley bundlers 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 explained.

Shortly after Haley‘s withdrawal from the GOP primary on Mach 6, she sent campaign T-shirts to some of her bundlers that said, “barred permanently” on them.

The shirt was a reference to Trump’s notorious threat, that anyone who gave money to Haley would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”

But a different person familiar with the t-shirts were never intended to send any message other than to say, “Thank you,” to her supporters.

George Conway, a one time Republican and vocal Trump opponent, 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 the party’s co-hosts are mostly Democrats, but he plans “to try to get some more apostates to show up.” 

As of Thursday, it was unclear if any other current or former Republicans planned to attend.

“Everyone, including Republican voters who reject Trump’s chaos, division, and violence, has a home 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 step things up.

For these Republicans, Biden’s current outreach does not go far enough to re-engage disenchanted Haley voters, many of whom have already experienced a big disappointment this year.

“There were [approximately] 76k votes for Nikki Haley last night in [Wisconsin’s primary],” wrote Bill Kristol, a Never Trump political consultant and former Reagan administration aide.

“Biden won WI by [approximately] 20k votes in 2020. Republican voters against Trump matter,” he added in the X post. “A little more outreach from Team Biden to those voters might not be a bad idea.”

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

Mike Madrid, a 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 some guidance from Biden’s team.

“Most interaction with the Biden campaign has been informal to this point, because most of the donors, elected officials and campaign professionals are looking for direction,” said Madrid.

“We’re waiting for marching orders,” he said.

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

The Biden campaign recently launched an advertisement encouraging Haley’s supporters to back Biden instead of Trump. A political action committee called “Haley Voters for Biden” is trying to convince Haley voters to back 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 reelection in November.

A Real Clear Politics polling average showed Biden and Trump in a virtual tie in the race for the White House Thursday.

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

If the Biden campaign can convert individual anti-Trump VIPs into Biden supporters, how they did it could hold important lessons for team Biden down the road.

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