GOP leaders roll out 100-day strategy to derail Trump

Republican leaders adamantly opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy are preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential nomination, starting with an aggressive battle in Wisconsin’s April 5 primary and extending into the summer, with a delegate-by-delegate lobbying effort that would cast Trump as a calamitous choice for the general election.

Recognizing that Trump has seized a formidable advantage, they say that an effort to block him would rely on an array of desperation measures, the political equivalent of guerrilla war.

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There is no longer room for error or delay, the anti-Trump forces say, and without a flawlessly executed plan of attack, he could well become unstoppable.

But should that effort falter, leading conservatives are prepared to field an independent candidate in the general election, to defend Republican principles and offer traditional conservatives an alternative to Trump’s hard-edged populism. They described their plans in interviews after Trump’s victories Tuesday in Florida and three other states.

The names of a few well-known conservatives have been offered up in recent days as potential third-party standard-bearers, and William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, has circulated a memo to a small number of conservative allies detailing the process by which an independent candidate could get on general-election ballots across the country.

Among the recruits under discussion are Tom Coburn, a former Oklahoma senator who has told associates that he would be open to running, and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who was suggested as a possible third-party candidate at a meeting of conservative activists Thursday in Washington.

Coburn said in an interview that Trump “needs to be stopped” and that he expected to back an independent candidate against him.

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“I’m going to support that person,” Coburn said, “and I don’t expect that person to be me.”

Trump opponents convened a series of war councils last week to pinpoint his biggest vulnerabilities and consider whether to endorse one of his two remaining opponents, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Governor John Kasich of Ohio. Trump has a delegate lead of about 250 over Cruz, the second-place candidate.

David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, which has spent millions on ads attacking Trump, said his group met Wednesday and concluded it was still possible to avert Trump’s nomination. The group plans a comprehensive study of Trump supporters to sharpen a message aimed at driving them away from him.

“This is still a winnable race for a free-market conservative that’s not Donald Trump,” McIntosh said, adding, “It’s not a layup, but there’s a clear path to victory.”

A delegate war

Central to this plan is stopping Trump in Wisconsin, the next major showdown after contests that Trump and Cruz are expected to split this week in Arizona and Utah.

On Thursday, the Club for Growth sent a three-page memo to influential Republican donors promising to spend as much as $2 million in Wisconsin and arguing that “the only viable option to defeat Donald Trump is Ted Cruz.”

The memo conceded it was “very unlikely” that Cruz could overtake Trump in the delegate count, but outlined a strategy to deny Trump the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the nomination before the convention in Cleveland in July.

Cruz and Kasich also see the Wisconsin primary as pivotal. Cruz’s campaign is dispatching additional staff members there and opening a “Camp Cruz” to house volunteers. The campaign will begin running ads there in the next few days, aiming to get a head start on Trump.

Beginning with Wisconsin, the race moves into states that apportion delegates based on who wins in each congressional district, which would allow anti-Trump forces to peel delegates away from him in states like New York and California, where he is expected to run strong. A few of the remaining winner-take-all states, like Montana and South Dakota, appear friendly to Cruz.

Trump has said he expects to win a majority of the delegates before Cleveland, and that if he falls just short it would be unconscionable for the party to nominate someone else.

A split opposition

Trump’s hand has been strengthened by disagreements within the stop-Trump forces, which fall along familiar lines: Conservative activists are uneasy with the party establishment and favor Cruz, while many Republican elites have warmed to Kasich, recoiling from those they perceive as ideological purists.

Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee in 2012, attempted to bridge that divide Friday by revealing that he would support Cruz in Utah and warning that “a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely likely that Trump-ism would prevail.” 

But contempt for Cruz runs deep in Washington. Since the withdrawal of Rubio, who had the support of many fellow senators, just one has endorsed Cruz.

About two dozen conservative leaders met Thursday at a private club in Washington, where some pushed for the group to come out for Cruz to rebut the perception that the stop-Trump campaign was an establishment plot.

“If we leave here supporting Cruz, then we’re anti-establishment,” said one participant, who could be heard by a reporter outside. But the group failed to agree on an endorsement, instead pleading for Kasich and Cruz to avoid competing in states where one of them is favored.

A third choice

For Republicans opposed to Trump under any circumstances, a third-party campaign offers a last refuge. Such a candidacy might gain support from high levels of the party: Romney has said he would be inclined to vote for a third candidate over Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Advisers to Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who considered an independent run, concluded that petition-gathering would have had to begin by early March for a candidate to appear on November ballots in all 50 states.

But an independent could still get on ballots in dozens of states — or perhaps seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party, which is on the ballot in most states and does not pick a candidate until late May.

“I think the ballot access question is manageable,” Kristol said in an interview. “The big question is, who’s the candidate?”