#NeverTrump GOP endorsements LATEST: Graham and Lee voted McMullin

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He'll take plenty of us with him. The Trump Revolution was dead before it started.

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He'll take plenty of us with him. The Trump Revolution was dead before it started.

Enjoy President Hillary, RINO scum.

I'd like to keep the possibility of actual conservative governance sometime in the future open, thank you very much.

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He'll take plenty of us with him. The Trump Revolution was dead before it started.

Enjoy President Hillary, RINO scum.

I'd like to keep the possibility of actual conservative governance sometime in the future open, thank you very much.

Bad news, little buddy. By the time President Hillary leaves office in 2024, it will be demographically impossible for a Republican to win the presidency. Hey, at least you got to virtue signal to all of your friends that you aren't a nasty racist like those Trump supporters.

Naaah. By 2020, or 2024, or 2028, or whenever it is that the Democrats get unpopular -- because it'll happen eventually -- enough minorities will vote for us that we will win anyway (just like they've always eventually done for the entire history of the Republican Party), so long as we have not been overtaken by the Trumpistas (in which case we will be unable to win anything until a reconquista is completed). In the meantime under a Hillary Presidency, by continuing to win congressional and statewide elections, especially during midterms, whose design is skewed in our favor, we can prevent Hillary/her successors from doing much of anything except through executive order (including if necessary keeping SCOTUS seats open for years on end).

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He'll take plenty of us with him. The Trump Revolution was dead before it started.

Enjoy President Hillary, RINO scum.

I'd like to keep the possibility of actual conservative governance sometime in the future open, thank you very much.

Bad news, little buddy. By the time President Hillary leaves office in 2024, it will be demographically impossible for a Republican to win the presidency. Hey, at least you got to virtue signal to all of your friends that you aren't a nasty racist like those Trump supporters.

Naaah. By 2020, or 2024, or 2028, or whenever it is that the Democrats get unpopular -- because it'll happen eventually -- enough minorities will vote for us that we will win anyway (just like they've always eventually done for the entire history of the Republican Party), so long as we have not been overtaken by the Trumpistas (in which case we will be unable to win anything until a reconquista is completed). In the meantime under a Hillary Presidency, by continuing to win congressional and statewide elections, especially during midterms, whose design is skewed in our favor, we can prevent Hillary/her successors from doing much of anything except through executive order (including if necessary keeping SCOTUS seats open for years on end).

Reagan, as close as the GOP has ever come to a dream candidate, couldn't crack 10% of the non-white vote against the most vulnerable Democrat opponent imaginable. I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen for you guys. You need to snap out of it.

You miss my meaning. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Irish and the Italians and the Jews and the Germans came over, at first they always voted heavily Democratic, and eventually they assimilated into the general white American culture and began to vote Republican. Rates of intermarriage between Hispanics and white Americans are higher than they were between white Americans and some of these groups. My point being: eventually (most; those that appear physically black will probably not undergo this process) Hispanics will be considered white, and then they will vote just as Republican as white Americans do. This process is a gradual one that will take decades, but it'll surely happen unless we actively try to discourage it (such as by nominating Trump).

Reagan won by winning those that weren't considered minorities anymore, and the Republican Party will be able to do it again. (Also, this is maybe pedantic, but Reagan won 10% of the non-white vote in 1980 and 13% in 1984, so more than 10; also we've improved since then, since the process I described in the previous paragraph is already happening. Romney's historically poor performance with minorities was 18%; significantly more than Reagan).

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This is all ridiculous because Hillary's victory, while massive, isn't going to in any way be an endorsement for Hillary: it's going to be a resounding defeat for Trump. (Unlike, say, 2008, which was an endorsement for Obama). As such, Hillary's coattails are not going to be particularly significant, which means it's unlikely Democrats take the Senate.

Keep in mind that Trump is already running, is already the overwhelming favorite for the nomination, and that's already factored in to Senate polls. Fine, Democrats'll take IL & WI; perhaps FL with a bad Republican candidate and a good Democrat (both unlikely); they're trailing but within striking distance in NH and NV (keeping in mind that NV is a hold, not a gain). Their candidate in PA is someone the party can't bear to support, their candidate in OH is a finished old man, their candidate in NC is an ex-state Representative. Every other state with a Republican incumbent is solidly red. I can see a narrow, unlikely path to 51-50, but anything better than that for Democrats just won't happen in the 2016 climate unless Obama magically becomes popular.

I have also not factored in the possibility of a serious right-wing third-party candidate, which doesn't seem likely to happen but very well could. That will result in a more overwhelming Hillary win in the EC (though who care), but her popular vote percentage will be much lower, and far more conservatives will vote; you'll get the new Trump voters and the old Republicans, who together will very likely be a majority of the electorate. Not all of those people will look downballot, but do you really think those that do will vote for a Democratic Congress? Not bloody likely.

In short, for all the sturm und drang, 2016 is still overwhelmingly likely to be a 2012-style status quo election where nothing actually changes. Clinton will succeed Obama and implement basically the same policies, McConnell, Ryan, and the 8 justices will stay in place and do what they always do. 2018 will roll around and movement conservatives will be back with a vengeance. 2/3 Senate majority won't be out of the question, though it probably is in the House, unfortunately.

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A conservative 3rd party run means Trump would retaliate by endorsing downballot Dems in a bunch of competitive races.  The GOP would be lucky to hold onto the House in that environment, let alone the Senate.

Trump endorsing downballot Democrats would result in the conservative third-party option outperforming Donald as only his core loyalists stay with him, while the Democrats he endorses do worse due to left-wingers refusing to vote for them. Lose-lose proposition for Trump and congressional Democrats. Try again.

Remember the last time a "moderate respectable Republican" ran third party, allowing the incumbent Democrat to win in a landslide?



Oh...

Remember when the winner of that year's Republican nomination picked one of his opponents for VP, and then the moderate Republican you speak of ran a campaign aimed at Democratic voters, to the extent that the Democratic candidate tried all means of getting him less media attention, refusing to participate in debates that the moderate Republican did? And then the Democratic candidate lost? Oh...

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In this interview (at about the ~4:20 mark) Mitch McConnell is asked if he thinks Donald Trump is fit to be president, and he dodges the question, simply saying that “The American people will decide” in November:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-utLdJo69U

So we have the Republican Speaker of the House endorsing the party’s presidential nominee, yet accusing him of making racist comments, and the Republican Senate Majority Leader endorsing the party’s presidential nominee, but not answering the question when asked if he’s actually fit to be president.

Seems like a healthy political party.

Trump and his supporters have completely hijacked the GOP, and there's no coming back.

As someone who has never supported a Democrat for president, and only a very small handful of times for other positions, I, for one, will never support a Republican for any position if they endorse Trump in this election. That is an immediate disqualifier for me, no matter the position, no matter the opponent; an endorsement for Trump today is an opposition vote from me in the future.

Trump's supporters haven't "hijacked" the GOP.  The GOP elites lived in this fantasy world where they could scare people with "higher taxes are coming" to vote for candidates who are all for wars, free trade, and liberal immigration policies.  The REAL Republican party spoke, and it's different from the positions papers of Rubio, Jeb!, and Cruz.

You realize those position papers got more votes than Trump, even counting in the votes Trump received when he was completely unopposed, right?

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In this interview (at about the ~4:20 mark) Mitch McConnell is asked if he thinks Donald Trump is fit to be president, and he dodges the question, simply saying that “The American people will decide” in November:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-utLdJo69U

So we have the Republican Speaker of the House endorsing the party’s presidential nominee, yet accusing him of making racist comments, and the Republican Senate Majority Leader endorsing the party’s presidential nominee, but not answering the question when asked if he’s actually fit to be president.

Seems like a healthy political party.

Trump and his supporters have completely hijacked the GOP, and there's no coming back.

As someone who has never supported a Democrat for president, and only a very small handful of times for other positions, I, for one, will never support a Republican for any position if they endorse Trump in this election. That is an immediate disqualifier for me, no matter the position, no matter the opponent; an endorsement for Trump today is an opposition vote from me in the future.

Trump's supporters haven't "hijacked" the GOP.  The GOP elites lived in this fantasy world where they could scare people with "higher taxes are coming" to vote for candidates who are all for wars, free trade, and liberal immigration policies.  The REAL Republican party spoke, and it's different from the positions papers of Rubio, Jeb!, and Cruz.

You realize those position papers got more votes than Trump, even counting in the votes Trump received when he was completely unopposed, right?

Position papers don't get votes.  Candidates do.  If those "position papers" were as reflective of the rank and file GOP as you assert, Trump would not have gotten the nomination.

Not true necessarily; Trump benefited from a very great deal of vote splitting. The candidates you list as having unpopular position papers collectively annihilated Trump.

  The GOP electorate would have coalesced around a candidate that adhered to those positions, just as the Democratic electorate would have coalesced around a candidate other than George Wallace in 1972, had Wallace not been shot.  (Wallace was the leading Democratic vote-getter in 1972 at the time he was shot.)

Just as the Democrats failed to coalesce around a single anti-Carter in 1976, they would have failed to coalesce around a single anti-Wallace in 1972. The differences between the different blocs were just too great. 

It was hardly unclear to the GOP electorate that Trump was not in sync with the low tax/free trade/neocon foreign policy mantras that the GOP has pushed for several decades now.

It was. Trump expressed support for classic Republican projects in debates and in his rallies -- his website proudly declared support for lower taxes and "bombing the sh**t" out of Middle Eastern enemies. Issue polling has shown the only issue on which Trump voters significantly differ from other Republicans is trade, and that that issue is not foremost for very many people.

Trump was chosen by people who liked his rhetoric, and by a liberal media that aided him by making him sound competent and tearing down his enemies.

  That they chose DONALD TRUMP by LARGE PLURALITIES, and that these pluralities grew as the field winnowed, is, to me, indisputable proof that the GOP rank and file is not in sync with its leadership.

First of all, "large pluralities" is an oxymoron. Second of all, they didn't. Trump got 33% in South Carolina and 35% in Wisconsin. He remained in the mid-30s from the start of the campaign in Iowa to about late April. Some polls had him in the mid-40s; some had him in the mid-20s. You can cite them if you wish, but they were outliers. His support only grew towards the end, when Cruz and Kasich demoralized their supporters by making moves seen as desperate. His favorability did not improve until after he actually received the nomination and enjoyed a (typical) post-winning bounce, which is now receding.

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Gordon Humphrey may vote for Clinton, but is definitely NeverTrump: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gordon-humphrey-may-vote-clinton

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(B) he's one of these "free trade" neocon Republicans that never intended to support Trump because of the support they get from those who profit off of "free trade".  There's nothing Trump could have done to get Flake's support, period. 

Sounds like one of the best folks in our party, if true.

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Pete McCloskey is still alive?

Yes, but he formally made a big show of switching to the Democratic Party in 2007, so while he certainly is a "former GOP Rep" I don't think you can call him a "NeverTrump Republican".