Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Well-placed Republican insiders are mobilizing to block Donald Trump from winning the GOP presidential nomination.
For instance, Trump is conspicuously excluded from the roster of potential 2024 candidates whom the Club for Growth has invited to speak this weekend at a retreat the conservative group is hosting for its biggest donors in Palm Beach, Florida—Trump’s backyard. Likewise, the sprawling network of donors associated with the Koch brothers declared last month that it would work in the 2024 GOP primaries to elect a nominee who “will turn the page on the past several years,” an unmistakable reference to moving beyond Trump. And though they’re still a minority, a steady stream of prominent Republican strategists, donors, and elected officials are openly predicting that the party will lose in 2024 if it nominates Trump again.