For many disaffected Republicans, 2022 is the year the “Never Trump” movement became “Never Trumpism.”
In races across the country, former and even some sitting Republican elected officials are endorsing Democratic candidates in unusual numbers. And a crop of Republican-led groups that sprang up to oppose former president Donald Trump has now turned to persuading Republican voters against supporting the party’s nominees who are imitating his divisive appeals and lies about the 2020 election.
The efforts are a combination of outreach from Democratic campaigns, Republican groups acting on their own initiative and spontaneous decisions by individual voters. There’s no central coordination. Republicans say they’re motivated both by local dynamics in specific races and the national environment — a reflection of how Trump’s transformation of the party has exploded into a new generation of Trump-style figures.
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“What’s different now is it’s not just Trump,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who publishes the Bulwark conservative website and runs the Republican Accountability Project super PAC. “As people watched it go beyond Trump, and the entire party descend into this madness this cycle, there’s a lot more willingness from Republicans to stand up and speak out against individual candidates they find abhorrent.”
Longwell’s group is spending more than $20 million this election cycle, about half on media about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and ongoing dangers to American democracy, and the other half through the super PAC attacking Republican candidates who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The super PAC’s major donors include Kathryn Murdoch, the daughter-in-law of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Boston-based hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman, who has in the past supported candidates from both parties; Democratic donor Sue Mandel; and members of the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame and the family of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).
Like a similar campaign against Trump in 2020, the super PAC is airing testimonials from Republican voters who say they can’t vote for the party’s current nominees in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. The voters voice various objections to the different candidates, and the unifying thread, according to Longwell, is to present credible messengers with whom other Republicans can identify.
“There’s just a lament for what’s happened to the party and a real sense of disgust at election denialism, the lies, and the extent to which these candidates ape Trump,” Longwell said. “As the party has changed, there’s a group of Republicans who feel alienated despite being Republican voters their whole lives.”
Trump plots aggressive midterm strategy seen in GOP as a double-edged sword
This group may be relatively small: Surveys show Trump continues to command overwhelming support among Republican voters. But in closely contested elections, even a small number of Republicans who cross over, split tickets or stay home could be decisive.
“It’s very tightly targeted,” said Craig Snyder, a former aide to former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter who’s running a PAC trying to dissuade Republicans from supporting the state’s GOP gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano. “We don’t need to talk to the whole commonwealth. We don’t even need all Republicans.”
For some of the Republican leaders who are breaking with their party’s nominees this cycle, their efforts are a direct extension of their past opposition to Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) spoke earlier this month in Arizona against the GOP nominees there for governor and secretary of state, who have denied the results of the 2020 election and are running for positions where they could refuse to certify future outcomes. Cheney’s fellow Republican on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), started a PAC that has endorsed candidates from both parties who Kinzinger said are defending democracy, including the Democrats running for Pennsylvania governor, Arizona governor and Arizona secretary of state. Cheney lost her primary in August, and Kinzinger did not seek reelection after redistricting.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who pointedly did not endorse Trump and voted to convict him in both impeachments, is now withholding support from his senior colleague, Mike Lee, who advised Trump’s defense team in the former president’s second impeachment trial and is fending off a challenge from independent Evan McMullin. And Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who became a staffer on the House Jan. 6 committee, recorded an ad endorsing front-line Democrat Abigail Spanberger. “This is not a typical political ad,” Riggleman says in the video.
Several Democrats in competitive races have loudly rolled out endorsements from prominent state and local Republicans. Probably the most prolific has been Josh Shapiro, the Democrat running against Mastriano for governor of Pennsylvania. Shapiro has collected announcements of support from former congressmen Charlie Dent and Jim Greenwood, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, several former state lawmakers and former Trump White House lawyer Jim Schultz. The candidate recently held a joint interview with a sitting elected Republican, Lawrence County Commissioner Chairman Morgan Boyd, who said he’s talking with other GOP officials who will cross party lines to support Shapiro, even if they’re not saying so publicly.
In races across the country, former and even some sitting Republican elected officials are endorsing Democratic candidates in unusual numbers. And a crop of Republican-led groups that sprang up to oppose former president Donald Trump has now turned to persuading Republican voters against supporting the party’s nominees who are imitating his divisive appeals and lies about the 2020 election.
The efforts are a combination of outreach from Democratic campaigns, Republican groups acting on their own initiative and spontaneous decisions by individual voters. There’s no central coordination. Republicans say they’re motivated both by local dynamics in specific races and the national environment — a reflection of how Trump’s transformation of the party has exploded into a new generation of Trump-style figures.
ADVERTISING
“What’s different now is it’s not just Trump,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who publishes the Bulwark conservative website and runs the Republican Accountability Project super PAC. “As people watched it go beyond Trump, and the entire party descend into this madness this cycle, there’s a lot more willingness from Republicans to stand up and speak out against individual candidates they find abhorrent.”
Longwell’s group is spending more than $20 million this election cycle, about half on media about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and ongoing dangers to American democracy, and the other half through the super PAC attacking Republican candidates who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The super PAC’s major donors include Kathryn Murdoch, the daughter-in-law of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Boston-based hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman, who has in the past supported candidates from both parties; Democratic donor Sue Mandel; and members of the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame and the family of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).
Like a similar campaign against Trump in 2020, the super PAC is airing testimonials from Republican voters who say they can’t vote for the party’s current nominees in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. The voters voice various objections to the different candidates, and the unifying thread, according to Longwell, is to present credible messengers with whom other Republicans can identify.
“There’s just a lament for what’s happened to the party and a real sense of disgust at election denialism, the lies, and the extent to which these candidates ape Trump,” Longwell said. “As the party has changed, there’s a group of Republicans who feel alienated despite being Republican voters their whole lives.”
Trump plots aggressive midterm strategy seen in GOP as a double-edged sword
This group may be relatively small: Surveys show Trump continues to command overwhelming support among Republican voters. But in closely contested elections, even a small number of Republicans who cross over, split tickets or stay home could be decisive.
“It’s very tightly targeted,” said Craig Snyder, a former aide to former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter who’s running a PAC trying to dissuade Republicans from supporting the state’s GOP gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano. “We don’t need to talk to the whole commonwealth. We don’t even need all Republicans.”
For some of the Republican leaders who are breaking with their party’s nominees this cycle, their efforts are a direct extension of their past opposition to Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) spoke earlier this month in Arizona against the GOP nominees there for governor and secretary of state, who have denied the results of the 2020 election and are running for positions where they could refuse to certify future outcomes. Cheney’s fellow Republican on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), started a PAC that has endorsed candidates from both parties who Kinzinger said are defending democracy, including the Democrats running for Pennsylvania governor, Arizona governor and Arizona secretary of state. Cheney lost her primary in August, and Kinzinger did not seek reelection after redistricting.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who pointedly did not endorse Trump and voted to convict him in both impeachments, is now withholding support from his senior colleague, Mike Lee, who advised Trump’s defense team in the former president’s second impeachment trial and is fending off a challenge from independent Evan McMullin. And Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who became a staffer on the House Jan. 6 committee, recorded an ad endorsing front-line Democrat Abigail Spanberger. “This is not a typical political ad,” Riggleman says in the video.
Several Democrats in competitive races have loudly rolled out endorsements from prominent state and local Republicans. Probably the most prolific has been Josh Shapiro, the Democrat running against Mastriano for governor of Pennsylvania. Shapiro has collected announcements of support from former congressmen Charlie Dent and Jim Greenwood, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, several former state lawmakers and former Trump White House lawyer Jim Schultz. The candidate recently held a joint interview with a sitting elected Republican, Lawrence County Commissioner Chairman Morgan Boyd, who said he’s talking with other GOP officials who will cross party lines to support Shapiro, even if they’re not saying so publicly.