Conservative Trump detractors, including George Conway, launch group aimed at defeating Trump in 2020
A group of President Trump's most ardent conservative critics have launched a new organization aimed at defeating the president and his defenders in 2020, even if it means victory for Democrats.
Called "The Lincoln Project," the super PAC's stated mission is to "defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box." The group is spearheaded by a group of eight advisers, including George Conway, a conservative lawyer who is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
"We do not undertake this task lightly nor from ideological preference," the group wrote on its website, which launched Tuesday. "Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain. However, the priority for all patriotic Americans must be a shared fidelity to the Constitution and a commitment to defeat those candidates who have abandoned their constitutional oaths, regardless of party."
"Electing Democrats who support the Constitution over Republicans who do not is a worthy effort," they add.
In an op-ed in the New York Times coinciding with the Lincoln Project's launch, Conway, Steve Schmidt, a former adviser to Senator John McCain, John Weaver, a former adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Rick Wilson, a GOP media consultant, wrote their new organization "transcends partisanship" but note that they "have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal)."
The group is targeting its efforts at disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing districts and states, who Conway, Weaver, and Wilson said will help secure an Electoral College victory and "majorities that don't enable and abet Trump's violations of the Constitution; even if that means Democrat control of the Senate and expansion of the Democratic majority in the House."
The Lincoln Project is taking aim not only at Mr. Trump, whose actions have triggered the ire of a small group of Republicans, some of whom have left the party altogether, but also at GOP lawmakers who have continued to stand by the president.
Referring to Mr. Trump's backers in Congress as "enablers," Conway, Weaver, and Wilson said these allies of the president have abandoned Republican principles in favor of "Trumpism, an empty faith led by a bogus prophet."
"We look to Lincoln as our guide and inspiration," they wrote. "He understood the necessity of not just saving the Union, but also of knitting the nation back together spiritually as well as politically. But those wounds can be bound up only once the threat has been defeated. So, too, will our country have to knit itself back together after the scourge of Trumpism has been overcome."
While the group of conservatives behind the Lincoln Project seek to boot Mr. Trump from office in the next election, polling shows Republicans are pleased with his job performance. A CBS News poll released Monday found 91% of Republicans believe Mr. Trump is doing a good job as president, up slightly from the 89% rating he received from Republicans last month.
The launch of the Lincoln Project comes as the House prepares to vote this week on two articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump. The House, led by Democrats, is expected to vote to impeach the president, marking just the third impeachment of a president in U.S. history.