Elite Republican donors are plotting to stop former President Donald Trump from securing the party’s 2024 nomination.
One Republican insider described as a Wall Street financier compared Trump’s candidacy to an emergency, according to a Thursday Politico report.
“It is a five-alarm fire.”
Well-funded groups with connections to prolific GOP campaign donors are already planning to tank Trump’s comeback presidential campaign.
These include Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit funded by libertarian oligarch Charles Koch, and the Club for Growth, a conservative organization which has already refused to invite Trump to its annual donor summit, according to The New York Times.
The same organizations were hesitant about Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. Koch ordered his well-funded political network to refrain from expenditures in support of Trump, according to NBC News.
One Republican fundraiser cited by Politico didn’t hesitate to tear into Trump when asked about the former president, bashing him as an electoral liability.
“I don’t think it is fair to call Donald Trump a damaged candidate,” Eric Levine said.
“He is a metastasizing cancer who if he is not stopped is going to destroy the party. Donald Trump is a loser.”
Will Trump be the Republican nominee in 2024?
Yes: 95% (39 Votes)
No: 5% (2 Votes)
“He is the first president since Hoover to lose the House, the Senate and the presidency in a single term. Because of him Chuck Schumer is the Leader Schumer, and the progressive agenda is threatening to take over the country.”
“And he is probably the only Republican in the country, if not the only person in the country, who can’t beat Joe Biden.”
Some donors are so wary of Trump’s renomination that they’ve already urged potential dark horse candidates not to run — in hopes of avoiding the split of a primary field in which Trump would secure a plurality of support.
“Does Mike Pence really want his legacy to be that he got four percent of the vote and helped elected Donald Trump?” one GOP insider described as a fundraiser’s adviser said of the prospect.
“Same goes for [Mike] Pompeo, same goes for [Nikki] Haley. They want to get traction, of course, but there is a higher motivation to pull out more quickly based on what it would mean for the country and the party.”
“The only way to defeat him is if some of these folks team up,” South Carolina Republican Party Katon Dawson said of the alternate candidates.
Another donor called turning off fundraising for dark horse candidates “the main control mechanism” in preventing Trump from winning in a split field.
Trump already stands to wage his 2024 campaign short millions of dollars in funds he received from Republican donors in 2020, according to Bloomberg.
Donors’ hesitance could spur Trump to wage his comeback campaign with less resources than his competitors.
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” former Trump donor Andy Sabin said of the 45th president, according to Politico.
“I wouldn’t give Trump a f***ing nickel, and that hasn’t changed.”
