A key player in the “Never Trump” movement arrived at the Republican National Committee’s spring meeting on Friday eager to convince RNC members to stop Donald Trump from becoming their party’s presidential nominee.
Katie Packer, a former aide to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, has spent about $15 million on anti-Trump efforts since she debuted Our Principles PAC earlier this year. On Friday, the veteran GOP strategist sought to personally outline her reasons for opposing the New York billionaire to the very individuals who could set the stage for a convention battle in July.
“As Republican leaders, it is critical that you do everything in your power to prevent Donald Trump from being our party’s standard-bearer,” Packer wrote to RNC members in a memo circulated at the spring meeting.
“You are under no obligation to wrap your arms around a candidate who has not won a majority of GOP votes, or a majority of delegates, and perhaps wouldn’t even be the frontrunner had the original field been much smaller,” she argued.
According to Packer’s memo, the GOP has previously held 10 national conventions where no candidate arrived with a majority of the delegates. In seven of those 10 conventions, she noted, a candidate who did not have the greatest number of delegates to begin with still became the nominee.
“They were elected because they stood for certain ideals shared by the majority of GOP voters,” she wrote, adding, “With Donald Trump as our nominee, we stand for nothing.”
Packer’s argument against Trump is threefold: He isn’t a conservative; he has said some things that could alienate key demographics in the general election; and he would cost Republicans the White House and Congress if nominated.
“Trump has no room to grow his image to improve his ballot standing,” Packer argued, pushing back against comments made hours before by Trump’s chief campaign strategist to RNC members.
“The part that he’s been playing is evolving into the part that now you’ve been expecting, but he wasn’t ready for, because he had first to complete the first phase,” Paul Manafort told spring meeting attendees late Thursday. “The negatives will come down. The image is going to change.”
But Packer claimed Trump’s most controversial remarks would haunt him in a general election even if he begins to behave more presidential. She pointed to the businessman’s statement about the war hero status of Arizona Sen. John McCain, his comments about women, and his prolonged refusal to disavow an endorsement from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in late February.
“He has called on his supporters to attack reporters and dissenters, both verbally and physically, even saying he would pay for their legal bills. Would you allow your child to behave this way?” Packer asked RNC members.
“We urge you to allow the process to play out and give the fairly and duly elected Republican delegates assembled together on the floor an opportunity to make the choice about who best represents our Republican values to the nation and to the world,” she wrote in conclusion.
Packer’s memo was circulated the same day RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called on campaign officials, candidates and committee members to “rally around whoever becomes [the] nominee.”
“It is essential to victory in November that we all support our candidate,” he said.
