Over 70 senior Republicans and party operatives have signed an open letter to Reince Priebus, the GOP chairman, imploring him to cut off funding to aid Donald Trump's presidential campaign in favor of helping Senate and House candidates win election.
"We believe that Donald Trump's divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck," reads a draft of the letter directed to the Republican National Committee leader, according to Politico. "This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump's chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day."
In addition to former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and former Reps. Tom Coleman of Missouri, Chris Shays of Connecticut and Vin Weber of Minnesota, almost 20 former RNC staff signed the later, including former press secretary Christine Iverson Gunderson and former communications director B. Jay Cooper.
According to Andrew Weinstein, a prominent anti-Trump Republican who helped organize the letter, it comes from "people who want the party to protect its majorities in the Senate and the House. It's not an endorsement of anybody."
Humphrey was a prominent backer of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's presidential bid, while Weinstein once worked for New Gingrich, a former House Speaker and White House contender. Their letter details a litany of Trump gaffes and missteps, including praising dictators such as Saddam Hussein, insulting Gold Star parents and urging Russia to uncover missing emails from Hillary Clinton's private server when she was secretary of state.
"Those recent outrages have built on his campaign of anger and exclusion, during which he has mocked and offended millions of voters, including the disabled, women, Muslims, immigrants, and minorities," the letter reads. "He also has shown dangerous authoritarian tendencies, including threats to ban an entire religion from entering the country, order the military to break the law by torturing prisoners, kill the families of suspected terrorists, track law-abiding Muslim citizens in databases, and use executive orders to implement other illegal and unconstitutional measures."
Cutting off Trump could greatly injure his campaign, according to The Washington Post. Last month Trump raised $82 million with help from the RNC, but he still trailed Clinton, the Democratic nominee, by $8 million.