Last week, I looked at building a leadership team in Texas to join the Lincoln Project, the super PAC founded by former GOP political consultants to defeat President Trump. Some of us in the Republican Party have grown tired of the divisiveness and recklessness that Trump has pushed in our country.
But as one gets deeper into researching the Lincoln Project, it is clear that its focus is not limited to Trump. It aims to defeat all Republican-elected officials. As we saw in their recent ad against Republican senators, all but Sen. Mitt Romney were attacked.
By losing focus on Trump, the Lincoln Project deters interest from conservatives who have stopped supporting the president. Also, when one looks closer at the Lincoln Project’s digital campaign efforts, engagement is fueled mainly by liberal social media users, not conservatives. There is no evidence that such a project, which appeals solely to liberal Democrats, can move Republican voters away from Trump.
In an initial meeting with the Lincoln Project’s political team, the prospective Texas leadership team was promised that no elected officials in Texas would be targeted. Just hours after our meeting, the ad targeting GOP senators including Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and others was released. Although the Lincoln Project leadership that we met with was not to blame, it goes to show that, at its core, the Lincoln Project is about creating a Democratic Senate majority and maintaining the Democratic House majority.
With founders such as John Weaver, a former GOP strategist, calling for the Lincoln Project to target GOP House seats in Texas and elsewhere, the Lincoln Project has become merely an extension of the Democratic Party’s 2020 efforts. Though some founders at the Lincoln Project still claim to be Republicans, it is hard to view that claim as truthful. Their digital accounts indicate that their plan is to defeat Republicans across the board, including those who have distanced themselves from the ideas of Trumpism.
As long as this mindset continues at the Lincoln Project, the super PAC will fail to recruit any relevant or current GOP leaders. Currently, a majority of the staffers working for the Lincoln Project outside of the founders and advisers are Democrats who have never been involved with the GOP at all. Many of those that they have managed to recruit for their state leadership teams are self-proclaimed independents who have worked with previous GOP administrations and business leaders who do not have political experience.
While some Republicans such as myself will not be supporting Trump this fall, we will still be fighting to support Republican senators and House members to move our country forward with liberty, limited government, and fiscal conservatism. The Lincoln Project, from behind the false guise of defeating Trump, wants every GOP senator and representative to be defeated.
Chris Ford, the former chairman of the Dallas Young Republicans, was a 2016 Texas delegate for Sen. Ted Cruz at the Republican National Convention.
