A group of President Trump’s staunchest critics, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband, is starting a super PAC in hopes of stopping his reelection.
The organization, dubbed the Lincoln Project, is led by a seven-person advisory council, including conservative lawyer George Conway, former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt, former John Kasich adviser John Weaver, veteran Republican operative Rick Wilson, political strategist Reed Galen, former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party Jennifer Horn, and former political director of the California Republican Party Mike Madrid.
Their efforts launched Tuesday, and the group published an opinion piece in the New York Times describing their mission.
“Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics. As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character,” the authors wrote. “Mr. Trump and his enablers have abandoned conservatism and longstanding Republican principles and replaced it with Trumpism, an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.”
“Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line,” the piece said.
The group has fundraising commitments exceeding $1 million and hopes to raise and spend millions more on an advertising campaign in 2020 battleground states in an effort to sway disaffected Republicans and independent voters to break from Trump and the senate candidates who support him, according to the Associated Press.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and North Carolina will have the group’s focus in the presidential campaign, Weaver said. Their Senate efforts would likely include Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Maine, and possibly Kansas and Kentucky.
“I think the more the merrier,” Conway said of his hopes that the anonymous Trump administration official who wrote a book critical of the president would join their efforts.
“And I hope maybe he — he or she, I don’t know who Anonymous is — will come out someday and join the effort. Because everyone who believes as we do that Donald Trump is a cancer on the presidency and on the Constitution needs to help and join this effort,” he said.
Conway explained that he would serve as a “cheerleader” for the organization because of his limited political experience. His wife, Kellyanne Conway, was Trump’s campaign manager when he won the 2016 election.
“I’m not a fundraiser or political consultant, but if I could help in that way and learn how to do that — even to raise a nickel or two — I’ll do it because it’s important,” he said. “For this, I think I can make an exception.”
Day-to-day operations will be led by Galen and Horn.
