Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is confident that the push to block the New York billionaire’s coronation as the party’s presidential nominee will flame out at the Republican National Convention — though some signs warn that the anti-Trump movement reflects lingering discontent that could undercut his chances of unifying the party before the November election.
Republican leaders and conservative activists engineering a “Free the Delegates” movement are scrambling to steer the nomination away from the presumptive party nominee on the convention floor. They are setting up a command center in Cleveland and plan to launch an ad campaign to support the effort.
“It will stop itself because they will find out the futility of what they are trying to do,” Sam Clovis, national co-chairman of the Trump campaign, said on MSNBC. “I think cooler heads will prevail.”
That is wishful thinking, Trump opponents say.
“That is a weird thing to say when you have a candidate who is down [in the polls] and has the potential to bring the party down in cataclysmic defeat,” Steve Lonegan, who is helping to coordinate the anti-Trump effort, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Lonegan said, “I think a lot of people in the Republican Party see this and they have to make a decision: Are they going to run the party over a cliff with Donald Trump?”
The unease has been apparent throughout the Republican nomination race and on Capitol Hill, where party members have distanced themselves from some of Mr. Trump’s remarks, including his proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Mr. Trump said Republicans must toughen up and “just be quiet.” He has blamed his lackluster fundraising on the reluctance of Republican leaders to fully embrace his candidacy and said he could win without them.
Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the last time the Republican presidential nominee faced so much resistance was in 1964, when a large majority of the party’s establishment rose up against Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
“Most never came on board before November,” Mr. Sabato said. “And that is the only time I know about from modern history. So, yes, what’s happening with Trump is extraordinary.”
An ABC/Washington Post poll released Sunday showed that Mr. Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton by 12 points in a head-to-head matchup, and perhaps more worrisome for the Trump campaign is that the survey showed just 77 percent of registered Republican voters support him in a two-person contest against Mrs. Clinton.
“That is the really bad sign,” Mr. Lonegan said. “It is not so much the polling numbers of him versus Hillary, but the fact that he is not mobilizing his own troops, and the first key in politics is to mobilize his own troops.
“That is why you are seeing this kind of movement erupting in many different ways with many different people,” he said. “If he had 95 percent support, you wouldn’t be hearing about me or any of these other folks with this effort. He cannot win nationally with the support for 77 percent of Republicans.”
Pro-Trump delegates dismiss the effort to stop him.
“I just don’t know how many of them are to really have some kind of impact,” said Matthew Jansen, a delegate from Pennsylvania. “I think all the votes that Trump received [in the primary contests] is the story — not some fringe group of conservatives that is not happy with Donald Trump.”
Mr. Trump plans to return to the campaign trail Tuesday to deliver an address on trade, “Declaring American Economic Independence,” in Pennsylvania and to rally supporters in Ohio.
The Trump camp has started to focus more on the logistical side of the national convention July 18-21 in Cleveland in hopes of giving him momentum heading into the final stretch of the presidential race.
Mr. Clovis said the campaign is moving the head off the anti-Trump challenges by working closely with the Republican National Committee and reaching out to convention delegates and state party chairmen.
“This is the kind of thing we should be doing anyway — making sure we have a good convention, and we’re going to have a great convention,” Mr. Clovis said.
Still, Mr. Clovis acknowledged the rift in the Republican Party over Mr. Trump’s primary win, which he said was driven by the establishment’s loss of power.
“There is a schism within the Republican Party. Let’s make no bones about it,” he said. “It has been highlighted throughout the campaign, and I think we have a different electorate coming out here, and I think the people who are in charge are seeing the fact that they are not going to be in charge any longer.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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