Trump may set GOP back decades with his reaction to racism scandal: GOP strategist

The Republican Party has made steady gains with nonwhite voters since the late 1990s, but President Donald Trump’s chaotic response to a racist video shared on his social media account may very well wipe out those gains before he leaves office, one GOP strategist warned on Sunday.

Early Friday morning, a video was shared on Trump’s social media account that included a short clip depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as primates in the jungle, sparking immediate outrage from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike. In a move that surprised some analysts, Trump would later remove the video amid backlash and blame its publication on a White House staffer.

However, the damage to the Republican Party may already be done, warned Arizona GOP strategist Barrett Marson, speaking with The New York Times in its report Sunday.

“He’s losing that,” Marson told the Times, referring to the Republican Party’s decades’ worth of gains with nonwhite voters. “He’s now going to burn those gains to the ground.”

Trump’s overall chaotic response to the fallout from the video, coupled with his lack of an apology, also set the stage for a similar incident to occur before he leaves office, Marson warned.

“He can’t admit a mistake, and therefore he cannot learn from the mistake,” Marson said. “So do I think this could happen again? 100%. Is this the last time that he posts or reposts something that is offensive and racially charged? I’m sure that it is not.”

Trump made historic gains in 2024 with nonwhite voters, securing 45% of the Hispanic vote, the highest Hispanic vote share for a Republican presidential candidate on record and surpassing the previous record of 44% set by President George Bush in 2004. Trump's gains with Hispanic voters was an increase of 13 percentage points when compared with 2020.

Those gains, however, could soon be lost, Marson feared, and in spite of the president pulling the racist video down, a move that surprised even President Bill Clinton’s former speechwriter, Jeff Shesol.

“It is surprising, in itself, to ever see him take a step back, to do anything other than, in the moment, double down and triple down, so in that sense it is surprising,” Shesol told the Times. “It feels significant.”