Some "high-level" Republicans secretly hope Harris beats Trump, but they won't do anything to help

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : Republican voters, by an overwhelming margin, want Trump to be president again; many are unwilling to consider the possibility that he could ever legitimately lose.
37% : According to Martin, this view is openly espoused by some "high-level" Republicans: that Trump losing in November best positions the party, then in opposition to a President Kamala Harris, to make gains in the 2026 midterm elections, enabling the party to block her agenda and field a morally palatable candidate for president in 2028.
36% : Then 2024 came and Trump, not even bothering to appear for debates, easily defeated his opponents in the Republican primary, reminding Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his supporters in conservative media that candidates are ultimately chosen by Republican voters -- and they, generally speaking, are not interested in a more disciplined version of the man they voted for in 2016 and 2020.
33% : But Republican voters like Trump not in spite of his moral failings, but because of them; that a serial liar is regarded by the GOP base as "honest" is in part a reflection of the candidate's open racism and misogyny, which reads among bigots as him "saying what we're all thinking.
2% : "But Harris is not Gerald Ford and Trump is not Richard Nixon and this is not 1974, when leaders of both parties were at least willing to say -- publicly -- that it's bad when a president commits crimes to undermine democracy.

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