Former GOP Staffers Urge RNC to Drop Donald Trump Support or Risk Democratic Landslide
They warn that money should be diverted to helping down-ballot races.
— -- Frustrated former Republican elected officials and party staffers are urging the Republican National Committee to stop supporting Donald Trump and instead focus all available resources on winning down-ballot races.
In a draft letter with more than 70 signatories that is expected to be formally sent next week, they warn of "the catastrophic impact" they predict Trump's campaign will have on other Republicans who are running this year.
“We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck,” they write in the draft letter to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus obtained by ABC News.
The signatories include five former Republican members of Congress and Republican staffers who previously worked at the RNC, on Capitol Hill and served in several Republican administrations.
Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey from New Hampshire leads the list of elected officials, along with former Rep. Tom Coleman of Missouri, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, Chris Shays of Connecticut and Vin Weber of Minnesota. The rest are former GOP staffers and delegates.
In the letter, the signatories write that “Trump’s divisive and dangerous actions are not only a threat to our other candidates, but to our Party and the nation.”
“Every dollar spent by the RNC on Donald Trump’s campaign is a dollar of donor money wasted on the losing effort of a candidate who has actively undermined the GOP at every turn. Rather than throwing good money after bad, the RNC should shift its strategy and its resources to convince voters not to give Hillary Clinton the ‘blank check’ of a Democrat-controlled Congress to advance her big government agenda,” they write.
They list Trump's attacks on Gold Star families, his refusal to release his tax returns, his suggestions that "a hostile foreign government" intervene in the election -- referring to Russia -- and his controversial comments about how Second Amendment supporters could stop Hillary Clinton from picking Supreme Court justices as examples of his missteps in the past month.
The letter goes on to call Trump's loss "likely" and to say that "Trump's chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day."