(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
- Two GOP officials urged voters to make sure “rational Republicans” don’t lose the “GOP civil war.”
- The op-ed was written by Miles Taylor, a Trump-era Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, and Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican Gov. of New Jersey.
- They highlighted the need to elect a “strong contingent of moderate Democrats” in 2022.
Two GOP officials have urged Republican voters to vote Democrat in the 2022 midterm elections, suggesting that this might be a way for the GOP to “battle pro-Trump extremists.”
Miles Taylor, a Trump-era Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, and Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican Gov. of New Jersey, penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday. Taylor was the Trump administration official who, under the pen name “Anonymous”, wrote a 2018 op-ed in The Times describing a “resistance” of Trump administration officials working to tamper the former president’s “worst inclinations.”
Together, Taylor and Whitman asked that the GOP’s base consider supporting Democrats so that “conservative pragmatists” could retake control of the party.
“Rational Republicans are losing the party civil war. And the only near-term way to battle pro-Trump extremists is for all of us to team up on key races and overarching political goals with our longtime political opponents: the Democrats,” Taylor and Whitman wrote.
“It’s a strategy that has worked,” they wrote. “Mr. Trump lost re-election in large part because Republicans nationwide defected, with seven percent who voted for him in 2016 flipping to support Joe Biden, a margin big enough to have made some difference in key swing states.”
The two argued that this move is necessary because the Republican leadership has “turned belief in conspiracy theories and lies about stolen elections into a litmus test for membership and running for office.” Taylor and Whitman also suggested that if Trump-backed candidates continued to win Republican primaries, they and their allies might start a new, center-right party.
“The best hope for the rational remnants of the Republican Party is for us to form an alliance with Democrats to defend American institutions, defeat far-right candidates, and elect honorable representatives next year – including a strong contingent of moderate Democrats,” Taylor and Whitman wrote.
Part of their suggested strategy would involve GOP voters supporting Democrats in “difficult races” like Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. The also advocated defending a “small nucleus of courageous Republicans” like Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Peter Meijer.
Kinzinger, for one, said in September that he thought the GOP shouldn’t win a majority in the House if it is “pushing division and pushing lies.” Cheney also said in September that she is not ready to cede the GOP to the “voices of extremism,” revealing as well that many Republicans both in the House and the Senate have cheered her on privately in her fight against Trump.
The Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
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