Trump drifts further from GOP orthodoxy in bid to beat Harris - Washington Examiner

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : He successfully changed the GOP platform to close off the possibility of a federal abortion ban, leaving the issue to the states, but his latest moves have upset anti-abortion activists in a manner that could hurt turnout from his base in two months.
51% : "There is ideological debate within the party between conservatives and populists, but I think Trump has been able to unite them over the last eight years, which is why he's seen political success," he told the Washington Examiner.
50% : He's vowed not to "touch" Social Security, moving the party further from calls to raise the retirement age, while on Thursday, he prompted Obamacare-era hand-wringing with his proposal to mandate that private insurance companies cover the cost of in vitro fertilization procedures.
50% : "What you're seeing is, in broad strokes, the evolution of the Republican, the continuing evolution of the Republican Party," said Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, who called Trump a "change agent" akin to the 40th president.
47% : "He acknowledged that the choice is difficult for Trump, however.
46% : "Trump created a new Republican coalition by separating himself from traditional Republican orthodoxy" a long time ago, said Dan Schnur, communications director for the late Sen. John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.
44% : He went on to win four years in office by rejecting "Medicare for All" and calls to defund the police.
44% : One problem Trump will have is skepticism from voters that he will follow through on his promises, according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University, or that "he will be able to overcome judicial and legislative obstacles to achieve these goals.
43% : But the election could hinge on how convincingly each side negates the pivot to the middle seen with Harris and Trump.
42% : "Trump has taken that label to describe the GOP as a whole, telling a crowd in Arizona a week ago, "You say what you want -- it's nice to say conservative, but really, we're the party of common sense.
41% : But Trump has long been ideologically flexible.
41% : Abortion access is "clearly something that has helped Democrats since the Dobbs decision," said Conant, and "to the extent that Trump's able to muddy the waters on that issue, that's probably to his advantage.
40% : But the pockets of GOP resistance underscore the ways in which Trump remains at odds with segments of his party on not only policy but also temperament.
37% : Lila Rose, the head of the anti-abortion group Live Action, said this week she won't vote for Trump on Nov. 5 unless he returns to his earlier embrace of her movement and is urging others not to either.
35% : "CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER"Like some on the Right, severe Right, came up with this Project '25, I don't even know, some of them I know who they are, but they're very, very conservative," Trump said in July.
34% : Trump has not steered his party without resistance.
33% : Over the past several months, Trump has made a rhetorical shift, dropping the label "conservative" in favor of describing his politics as "commonsense."
32% : Trump took a step in that direction on Friday, revealing he would vote against an abortion referendum in Florida that would have overridden his home state's six-week ban.
32% : "But he judged that Trump setting himself apart from his party on select issues could also help him frame himself as the anti-establishment candidate almost a decade after he entered politics.
28% : Ironically, Trump largely governed as a conservative during his four years in the White House, ushering through Congress a large decrease in the corporate tax rate and appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
27% : ""Trump has always been an outsider who doesn't fit establishment labels," Conda said.
26% : "But Conant had a word of warning regarding Trump's equivocation on abortion, mindful that "for the most part, people have made up their minds about Trump.
26% : Moderation on abortion is one way to win their vote, but Trump has put public safety, illegal immigration, and the economy at the center of his election pitch.
26% : Trump has disavowed Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda that Democrats have used to paint him as extreme.
21% : But the defund the police movement was a temporary reaction to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, while Trump is threatening to steer his party away from beliefs it has held for decades.
17% : Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 by bringing low-propensity voters into the GOP fold that he dubbed the "forgotten men and women of America.

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