The insurgency to overthrow Donald Trump in Cleveland is the latest danger sign for the presumptive Republican nominee’s troubled campaign.
The rebellion is being led by a small but expanding group of delegates to the GOP’s July convention, plus a cadre of sympathetic political strategists and grassroots activists.
Never supportive of the businessman but alarmed anew after several weeks of missteps, they aim to deny Trump their party’s presidential nomination and are in the initial stages of coup planning.
It’s an uphill battle and unlikely to succeed.
There is both a lack of leadership at the top necessary to direct a convention revolt, and insufficient dissatisfaction among Republican voters at the bottom to fuel it. Also lacking: an alternative candidate.
But the fact that the insurgency exists reveals the extent of Trump’s problems.
At a time when he should be unifying the GOP for the fight ahead against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump is instead attempting to put out fires of dissension that he is mostly responsible for fanning.
The situation has left the Republican Party paralyzed.
“Most Republican leaders are resigned to sleeping in the bed voters have made, believing the long-term damage will be made far worse by ousting Trump,” a Republican National Committee member told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Specifically regarding the prospects for an insurgency, this RNC member added: “It’s an absolute pipe dream unless [House Speaker] Paul Ryan or [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus are on board.”
The backlash comes just four weeks before Republicans are set to gather in Cleveland to crown Trump their 2016 nominee. It’s being spearheaded by members of the “#NeverTrump” crowd inside the GOP, as well as Republicans who supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the primary.
The movement picked up steam after Trump’s racially charged attack on the federal judge presiding over the Trump University lawsuit, and continued during the real estate mogul’s panned response to the jihadist terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The conspiring convention delegates have in recent days participated in a series of conference calls to flesh out a cohesive strategy.
Their initial goal is to push for changes to the convention rules that would make it easier for delegates to sidestep rules binding the vote of the delegates on first ballot on the convention floor to the candidate that won the cause or primary in their state, and vote their conscience. Doing so could make it easier to block Trump.
The convention rules committee, comprised of delegates, is set to meet the week before the July 18 convention. Steve Lonegan, a Republican from New Jersey and rebel organizer, conceded the steep odds faced by those that want to dump Trump, but insisted that success is achievable.
“If you wanted to do this right, you’d have paid people in every state, you’d have operatives and regional directors. We have none of that and we won’t have any of that. What we’re building is an organization that can be the source of knowledge on what to do and how to do it,” Lonegan said.
Lonegan, the former New Jersey state director for Cruz, is organizing through Courageous Conservatives, a super PAC that previously supported the Texas senator but that Lonegan said is not affiliated or in communication with any current or former candidate.
Lonegan hopes to name organizers in all 50 states, preferably delegates to the convention.
Lonegan claims the group already has representatives in more than half the state states, among them “midwestern whip” Pat Brady, a former Illinois GOP chairman and delegate for Ohio Gov. John Kasich; Eric Minor, a delegate from Washington state, and Colorado delegates Regina Thomson and Kendal Unruh.
Top Republicans are dismissing the coup attempt as a waste of time. That includes Virginia’s veteran Republican delegate and 2016 convention rules committee member Morton Blackwell, who previously endorsed Cruz.
Blackwell has served on every convention rules committee since 1988, and attended every committee meeting since 1972. He told the Examiner that any attempt to block Trump from the nomination would fail, in part because the RNC establishment and loyal Trump delegates would team up to foil it.
“There’s no doubt that it’s theoretically possible that the convention delegates could change its rules in any way that they please. It’s also theoretically possible that a flying saucer will land on the Capital Mall, but I don’t expect it to happen, either,” Blackwell said during a telephone interview. “It’s politically unrealistic. It will not happen.”
Trump on Monday fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and handed the reins to the more experienced Paul Manafort.
Some Republicans saw the move as a hopeful sign that Trump understood the gravity of his precarious political situation and was finally getting serious about defeating presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
But Lewandowski’s dismissal wasn’t quite enough to quell Republican insiders’ anxiety about the state of the reality television star’s campaign operation, and its trajectory.
Their worries are many, and run deeper than Trump’s slippage in the polls over the past few weeks. Trump still hasn’t pivoted to Clinton and focused solely on the general election.
He peppers his rallies with condemnations of fellow Republicans, recounts how he defeated his GOP primary opponents and spouts controversial rhetoric and positions popular with his core base but suspect among the more politically diverse November electorate.
Republicans are additionally nervous about Trump’s slow start fundraising and his lack of a properly built out, professional campaign staff. That’s why one convention delegate is intrigued by the possibility of an overthrow and keeping tabs on the efforts to organize one.
“If he keeps sinking and sinking and sinking — if he keeps attacking Republicans, I’d be interested in dumping him,” this delegate said, adding that the benefits would more than “outweigh” the downside.
Ryan Lovelace contributed to this report.
