‘White guilt’ will drive GOP donors away from Trump: Charlie Kirk

Donald Trump remains the frontrunner in polls pitting him against other presidential candidates, but conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk believes moderate GOP donors could direct their donations to another presidential candidate because of the “white guilt”.

Trump was the first high profile candidate to announce his presidential bid in November and recently the GOP presidential candidate pool has become more crowded. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced her campaign in February, and over the past 10 days South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have also thrown their hats off to the ring after highly anticipated campaign launches for both. Trump continues to lead in the polls but may struggle to perform well in the primaries amid ongoing legal battles and the frequent vitriol he shares on Truth Social.

However, Kirk believes that Scott, the first black man to represent South Carolina in Congress, holds an advantage over Trump in attracting much-needed fundraising funds from GOP donors because of “white guilt.”

“Republicans have been looking for our own Obama since 2008, like that’s going to solve all our problems,” Kirk said in a recent episode from his eponymous talk show. “It’s too bad you have to look at everything through a racial lens because Senator Tim Scott, regardless of race, has a lot to offer in a very powerful and charismatic way. I think he’s a thoughtful person , even if he is much more moderate than me on certain questions.

“Senator Tim Scott will certainly continue to make a more moderate Republican donor hear that he wants center-right policies,” Kirk added, before pretending to quote moderate GOP donors. “”Oh, it’s Senator Scott and he’s not like that guy you don’t like. He’s a moderate and he’s centre-right. “There’s also a lot of white guilt that permeates some of these donor decisions, make no mistake about it.”

Newsweek contacted Scott’s campaign via email for comment.

Scott’s optimistic outlook is an about-face from Trump’s verbal attacks, but Newsweek reported that Scott remains far behind Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one contest, with a prestigious Harvard/Harris Poll survey released last week showing Trump with a 79-21 advantage over Scott in a two-man contest. The poll was conducted online in the United States between May 17 and May 18 and surveyed 2,004 registered voters.

When Scott was included along with other potential GOP candidates like DeSantis, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump, only 1% of GOP voters admitted they would vote for him. 58% admitting they would vote for Trump and 16% for DeSantis.

The poll posed a question to GOP voters who they would vote for in the primary if Trump did not run for president, from which Scott jumped a full percentage point, but DeSantis emerged as the easy frontrunner.