Conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch will not use the hundreds of millions of dollars they have invested in the 2016 election to take down front-runner Donald Trump.
Despite speculation that the businessmen and Republican donors might try to block Trump, a report from Reuters late Wednesday evening put those rumors to rest.
“We have no plans to get involved in the primary,” said James Davis, spokesman for Freedom Partners, an organization that is partially funded by the Koch brothers and is dedicated to supporting conservative causes.
As recently as February, donors in the Koch brothers’ political network, which has a 2016 election budget of $889 million, had reportedly suggested the billionaires might try to stop Trump’s march to the White House because “they just hate the guy.”
After spending millions of dollars in the failed presidential campaigns of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the Koch brothers said in November that they planned to be “more selective” with the candidates they would back.
The report late Wednesday follows a message from another conservative heavyweight, Rupert Murdoch, who called for unity in the Republican Party.
The News Corp. chairman tweeted the party “would be mad not to unify” if Trump wins the nomination.
Also on Wednesday, Romney, who lost to President Obama, announced that he will deliver an address Thursday on the state of the 2016 election. It is expected that Romney will argue the case against Trump’s campaign, following a week of publicly attacking Trump for not releasing his taxes and the businessman’s response to news that a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan is supporting his campaign.
