The Wall Street Journal reports that the devastated RNC has allegedly now taken its money out of the Trump campaign, and will now be using it for other candidates down ballot.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Saturday told party officials to redirect funds away from nominee Donald Trump to down-ballot candidates, according to an official informed of the decision. In practical terms, the party will be working to mobilize voters who support GOP House and Senate candidates regardless of their position on the presidential race.
That means the RNC will push Floridians who support both Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio to vote. Before today, the RNC wouldn’t have sought to turn out Clinton voters, leaving split-ticket voters for Senate campaigns to target.
This has come on the back of one GOP leader after another ditching their support for Trump, and requesting he step down, after his nasty comments about his treatment of women. Now, according to the sources, the RNC is looking at some serious damage control options.
The immediate consequence of the RNC’s decision on allocating resources is a halt to the party’s mail program so it can be redirected toward a new universe of voters, the official said. News of the mail program stopping was first reported by Politico. Mr. Priebus and top party strategist Sean Spicer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Opinion polls across the country show a growing number of voters willing to back GOP congressional candidates and Mrs. Clinton. In Ohio, where Republican Sen. Rob Portman has endorsed Mr. Trump but declined to appear with him, the senator is leading his race by 15 percentage points in public opinion polls, while the presidential battle is basically tied. The RNC could increase the number of split-ticket voters by pushing Clinton supporters who back GOP Senate candidates to the polls.
It should be noted that Sean Spicer, the RNC’s Chief Strategist & Communications Director, has completely denied this story and stated that it’s not true.
Not true. False @reidepstein reporting. https://t.co/RZshcuwm4t
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 9, 2016
This has been greeted by disbelief by his followers. Indeed, with so many GOP members in full retreat, that the RNC is pulling it’s funding out of a candidate destined for failure isn’t too far out of the realm of believability.
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