Biden’s battle to secure backing of 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 support 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.

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

Shortly after Haley’s withdrawal from the GOP primary on March 6, she sent campaign T-shirts to some of her bundlers that said “Barred. Permanently.”

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 matter said the T-shirts were never intended to send any message other than to say “thank you” to her supporters.

George Conway, a onetime 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 that 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 plan 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.

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 also trying to persuade Haley voters to support Biden, 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 on Thursday showed Biden and Trump in a virtual tie in the race for the White House.

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.