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Never mind the heckles and boos, Sen. Tim Scott insists Donald Trump is gaining popularity! Trump’s critical reception at the Libertarian Convention this weekend isn’t deterring the senator from rosily insisting that while you may have heard jeers, there was a “wave of red hats” in the crowd.
“I saw a wave of red hats at the Libertarian convention,” Scott told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union Sunday. “Donald Trump’s popularity continues to increase.”
But as Semafor’s Dave Weigel pointed out, the red hats on the convention floor were in support of Javier Milei, Argentina’s new president. The hats were not MAGA hats; they read, “Make Argentina Great Again.”
Scott’s sunny assessment of the reception the former president received doesn’t line up with the reality that Libertarians loudly objected to nearly every line of Trump’s speech that usually draws applause from the former president’s supporters.
“Combine with us in a partnership,” Trump told the convention. “We’re asking that of the Libertarians. We must work together. Combine with us. You have to combine with us.”
“No!” the crowd replied.
“He’s not just going to the Libertarian Convention,” Scott said of Trump. “He’s also doing rallies in Bronx. He’s doing something, what I consider a 50-state strategy.”
“So I give him a lot of credit and going to places where Republicans have not gone before. If we’re going to win this election cycle, we must go where we’re not invited,” he continued. “And to see the former president take that seriously is, in my opinion, a strong sign and one of the reasons why, Dana, we are seeing the poll numbers moving in his direction.”
But as The New York Times pointed out yesterday, Trump’s lead in the polls is largely based on support from voters who are unreliable and disengaged, making his lead quite vulnerable. Among voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 election, Biden has come out in the lead across the last three national polls conducted by the Times and Sienna College. We are also more than five months away from the general election, so polls at this point in time don’t carry a whole lot of weight.
Scott is on the short list of contenders to be Trump’s running mate, and he has attempted to curry favor with the former president across multiple media appearances. Earlier this month, Scott refused to say whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election. “I expect President Trump to win the next election and, listen, I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question,” he told NBC host Kristen Welker when she pressed him on whether he would commit to accepting the election results.
Scott suspended his own presidential campaign this past November after a disappointing primary performance.
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