Delegates supporting Donald Trump say they are not planning a fight over the Republican Party platform.
Trump delegates on the platform committee who spoke to the Washington Examiner said they do not expect conflict over policy ahead of the July convention in Cleveland.
While Trump has in the past called for changes to the platform on abortion, and speculation has forced Ted Cruz allies and conservative activists to keep up their guard, some delegates for the presumptive nominee don’t anticipate even a battle over this key issue.
“I do not expect major changes. What I hope is that the platform will be reflective of the party’s values,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Trump delegate who will sit on the platform committee.
“[The platform] goes across the board on education, national defense and immigration. There are issues that every single Republican can get on board with and that are important to every single Republican — but not all issues are.”
Soon after Trump became the party’s presumptive nominee, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called on the real estate mogul to forego a fight over the platform, in addition to releasing a list of potential Supreme Court nominees (which Trump did last week) in order to assuage conservatives and help unify the party.
Rutledge, who previously served as the special counsel to the RNC in 2012, agreed with Priebus, saying it would “certainly” be a good move on the Trump campaign’s part.
However, Trump has spoken out vociferously against illegal immigration and trade deals, with those stances potentially being sticking points in the platform for some supporters. Additionally, Trump openly called for the platform’s position on abortion to change and include exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
Social conservatives on the platform committee, led by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, have openly pushed back against that idea.
“I think the way the platform is written allows there not to need a hard line drawn in the sand,” Rutledge said. “We want the platform of the Republican Party to be inclusive of all pro-life.”
Meshawn Maddock, a Trump delegate from Michigan who will be on the platform committee as well, believes that while Trump has his own differences, they ultimately won’t affect the platform.
“I don’t anticipate Trump’s platform being anything other than exactly what Cruz supporters would want,” Maddock said. “I think it’s a moot point… Trump’s platform is going to surprise everybody, just like everything he does surprises everybody. I think it’ll be outstanding. It will probably have something different in it because that’s who he is. But I don’t anticipate it to be anything less than a conservative platform.”
Maddock noted that she does not want the life issue in the platform to change because she opposes exceptions.
Republicans elsewhere hope and believe that neither his campaign nor Trump will push for changes to the platform, with some arguing that they aren’t suited for a fight, given the nature of the campaign.
“There are a couple of challenges they face. The Trump campaign has not been one about issues, and Trump supporters are signing on to Trump — not necessarily a Trump platform that basically doesn’t exist,” said Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director, who said he expects the platform to stay largely intact.
“If you look at his website, it is still pretty skimpy on policy and certainly specifics on policy. And now that his campaign has said that everything is a suggestion, it’s hard to then codify that into a platform.”
The platform committee is made up of 115 individuals (12 subcommittee chairs, 100 committee members) plus co-chairs Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx. Each state will be represented by one male and one female.
