A former Republican voter Robert Clark of Connecticut and a vocal minority within the Republican Party are organizing against President Trump through ad campaigns, fundraising and phone banking efforts in hopes that their break from the GOP will save the republic from the current president.
Colette Luke has more.
(Former Republican voter Robert Clark): "I first started identifying as a Republican back in '72, the reelection of [Republican President Richard] Nixon in high school, I worked for the campaign." That’s Robert Clark, a financial services manager in Connecticut who was once a rank-and-file Republican voter, but after Donald Trump won his party’s nomination back in 2016, he left the Republican Party and changed his affiliation to unaffiliated.
He now identifies as a Democrat.
(Former Republican voter Robert Clark):" He wins and then the policies start day one that are just abhorrent, really.
They're repulsive.
They're insulting.
They're clearly not American.
They're not patriotic.
They're not supporting defending the Constitution.
And about a year ago, so that's now late 2019, I changed my affiliation and I joined the Democratic Party." And now, he’s making phone calls to potential voters in his state to not only push for Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden to win but also Democrats up and down the ballot, hoping that the former party he once loved is defeated across the board.
“I believe our democracy is at stake.
I have to do something.
So that's got me down at Democratic headquarters making phone calls." And Clark is not alone.
A vocal minority within the Republican Party, ranging from rank and file voters to former Republican officials, is organizing against Trump through ad campaigns, fundraising and phone banking efforts in hopes that their break from the GOP will save the republic from Donald Trump.
(Sarah Longwell:) "For some of them, they're out on the Republican Party altogether.
For some of them, they're just, you know, are making a temporary sort of a temporary truce with the Democrats to beat Donald Trump.
And then will go on continuing to be Republicans." That’s Sarah Longwell, the founder of Republican Voters Against Trump - one of numerous right-leaning groups that have sprung up to take on the current president: “...when it comes to that loyalty test, Joe Biden is dramatically outperforming Donald Trump in terms of having consolidated his party behind him.
In fact, there's a number of polls that have come out that shows that if all of the Republicans who are supporting Biden were in fact supporting Trump, this race would be a dead heat.
But it's not because Donald Trump has pushed a number of people out of the party." But despite the defections, a high percentage of registered Republicans say they still support Trump.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 88% of registered Republicans said they were still backing him over Biden in the Nov.