George Conway, attorney and husband of senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway, will lead a new group of anti-Trump critics aimed at thwarting President Donald Trump’s re-election.
The Super PAC, named The Lincoln Project, is touting itself as a “formal step forward” for Never Trumpers and will begin operations with $1 million in funding commitments. In a New York Times op-ed, entitled, “We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated,” the group announced it aims to raise millions more to spend on ad campaigns targeting battleground state voters with a simple message: “Defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.”
The group is led by a seven-person advisory council that features some of the GOP’s most vocal Trump critics. Most, but not all, have already left the Republican Party to protest President Trump’s rise.
The principals include former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich adviser John Weaver, former New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn, veteran Republican operative Rick Wilson, and Conway.
In an interview, Conway said that he encouraged the new super PAC to involve Anonymous, an unnamed Trump administration official who authored a recent book warning the public against Trump’s reelection. The rest of the group ultimately decided not to take Conway’s suggestion.
“I think the more the merrier,” Conway told the Associated Press. “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.”
“We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks,” the group’s co-founders said in a statement. “Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.”
Weaver believes the Super PAC can place its ads on the airwaves early next year.
“This is organic, and we’re going to be flexible,” he told the Associated Press. “We have to go out and prove ourselves and prove that we can be efficient and effective.”
The launch comes as President Trump has matched his best approval rating ever — 43 percent — despite House Democrats readying a full House impeachment vote, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.