'The Republican Party is sick': Outside RNC, 'political orphans' resisting Trump seek path

MILWAUKEE – As thousands of Republican Party faithful gathered inside Fiserv Forum Wednesday night, a few dozen people met inside a wood-paneled tavern hall just a few blocks away to discuss what, exactly, it means to be faithful to a political ideology.

Is it fealty to a candidate?

Commitment to voting a straight-party ticket?

For the group meeting inside the historic Pabst Brewery, it means sticking to certain conservative principles. They gathered in support of Principles First, a center-right organization that emerged in 2019 as an alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

In Milwaukee this week, it was one of the few friendly rooms for anti-Trump Republicans and conservatives, a group of voters set adrift in the current political landscape as former President Donald Trump has emerged as an identity as much as a candidate for the mainline GOP.

The mood in the room was a sharp departure from the jubilant rally ongoing down the street, where a reverent relief after the assassination attempt has mixed with open glee over a potential Democratic ticket meltdown. The gathering of "political orphans," as conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes deemed the tavern, was decidedly less upbeat.

"The Republican Party is sick," Heath Mayo, a New York lawyer and the group's founder, said inside the historic Pabst Brewery. "It's been led astray by populist demagogues, and it has abandoned its principles."

A small, if vocal, group of conservatives first began coalescing around a never-Trump message in 2016 as Republican elected officials, policymakers and thought leaders who found Trumpism anathema to the party and discordant with conservative policies.

But as Trump ascended not just to the White House but to a position of power within the GOP that demands near-total loyalty, vocal opponents on the right have dwindled, along with options for reluctant voters.

“There are still never-Trump conservatives, but there aren’t many never-Trump Republicans, especially if you’re an office holder,” said Andrew Pieper, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University who edited a collection of essays from political scientists tracking never-Trump Republican officials ahead of the former president’s 2020 reelection campaign.

“At some point, you had to make a choice: Do you want to continue working in Republican politics or not? Most of the people who did eventually decided they had to jump on the bandwagon," Pieper said.

The voters who chose not to follow that bandwagon feel left in the dust, like Cass Davey, a 27-year-old who traveled four hours to the Principles First event with friend Jayci Mondell.

Both women say they now consider themselves independents, though Mondell is ready to vote Democratic over Trump. Davey applauds Republicans such as former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection, but appeared at times enraged and exhausted by the current state of the Republican Party playing out down the street.

“Instead of being country first, Republicans are focused solely on party, regardless of the fact that Trump is not focused on the well-being of Americans,” Davey said.

Brittany Martinez, a Republican strategist and one-time communications director for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, nows feels "politically homeless," disconnected from the party she's devoted a career to. She wants to be hopeful about the future of the party, but the options ahead are slim.

"I'm Republican, I won't be a Democrat, I don't want to be an independent," Martinez said.

Inside the RNC, some delegates said there is still a home in the current Republican Party for those resistant to Trump.

“There’s always room for them in the Republican Party,” Oz Sultan, a New York delegate, said. "Look, you’re never going to agree 100% with 100% of what a candidate or a politician says or brings forward as policy."

Other Republicans are less welcoming.

At an Indiana delegation breakfast on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks told fellow Hoosiers they must hold accountable the state’s top Republicans who have said they won’t support Trump’s 2024 campaign.

“This is no time for wimpy Republicans,” he later said in his speech Tuesday night.

It was a thinly veiled reference to Indiana Sen. Todd Young and former Vice President Mike Pence, who lost favor with Trump Republicans after Pence denied Trump’s request to block the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, something Pence insists he never had the authority to do.

Some Jan. 6 rioters called for Pence's head, and he had to be rushed for safety. Pence has refused to endorse Trump and was among several prominent Republicans who didn’t make the trip to Milwaukee this week.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who once challenged Trump in the primary and said last year he’d refuse to vote for a convicted felon, did show up in Milwaukee. But after Saturday’s assassination attempt, Hutchinson struck a conciliatory tone regarding Trump’s call for unity.

"I said it, and I meant it," he said of his pledge to not vote for Trump. "But a lot has changed since that moment."

The party this week has, in fact, unified, namely around Trump’s singular hold on Republicans' message and figureheads. Anti-Trump challengers such as former Gov. Nikki Haley have either bent the knee or avoided the raucous, celebratory convention that has featured almost no notable disputes or platform disagreements.

Kristin Combs, the lone RNC-credentialed delegate at the Principles First meeting, said she was interested in the message behind Principles First. A staunch Haley supporter, she'd watched the governor pledge not to endorse Trump if she lost the primary, and then watched from Milwaukee as Haley offered her "strong endorsement" of Trump from the Fiserv stage.

"I'm a Republican. I have been a Republican long before Trump, I will be a Republican long after Trump," Combs said, acknowledging she feels it is an "inevitability" candidates have to get on board with the GOP ticket if they want a future in politics.

When asked if she's willing to vote for Trump, she closed her eyes and grimaced, but nodded. The Republican ticket is her priority.

For Mayo, attracting voters like Combs seems to be a goal of the ongoing events he and other volunteers continue to put on around the country to drum up grassroots support among conservatives, even if they have little leverage to wield in the current climate.

"If you abandon our principles, you cannot count on our votes simply because you are a Republican," Mayo said. "That is the only way to hold elected leaders accountable in a constitutional republic. You have to be willing to do that, or they're going to take you for granted."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Anti-Trump conservatives search for political home outside RNC