15 Republicans Who Won’t Be Voting for Donald Trump (Photos)
While many major Republican figures like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have toed the party line and pledged their support to Donald Trump, there are some who refuse to support him, even if it means that Hillary Clinton will become the next President. Here are some notable names who see Trump as an opponent to conservative values.
Senator Lindsey Graham has been one of the most outspoken conservative critics of Trump, calling frequently on fellow Republicans to pull their support for the candidate. Following Trump’s derogatory comments against Judge Gonzalo Curiel, Graham said that at some point “there’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”
2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney has also been an early voice of dissent, telling the Wall Street Journal that he thinks Trump has “a character and temperament unfit for the leader of the free world.”
While his brother and father have refrained from comment on Trump, Jeb Bush has continued his crusade against Trump even after losing to him in the primary. In a Washington Post column, Bush said he will not vote for Clinton or Trump and declared that “Trump’s abrasive, Know Nothing-like nativist rhetoric has blocked out sober discourse about how to tackle America’s big challenges.”
Jeb Bush’s mother and former first lady, Barbara Bush, also spoke out against Trump, telling CBS how she didn’t understand how women could vote for him after his comments against Megyn Kelly.
One of Jeb Bush’s aides, Sally Bradshaw, was so disgusted by Trump that she decided to leave the Republican Party outright. “Ultimately, I could not abide the hateful rhetoric of Donald Trump and his complete lack of principles and conservative philosophy,” she told CNN. “If and when the party regains its sanity, I’ll be ready to return.”
During the primary, former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman made it quite clear how he views Donald Trump in a Minneapolis Star-Tribune column: “I won’t vote for Donald Trump because of who he isn’t. He isn’t a Republican. He isn’t a conservative. He isn’t a truth teller. He’s not a uniter…I also won’t vote for Donald Trump because of who he is. A bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully.”
Glenn Beck, a staunch Cruz supporter during the primary, has not joined other pundits like Sean Hannity on the Trump bandwagon. “Donald Trump is the face of the GOP. Well, that makes us crony capitalists. It makes us wafflers. It makes us pretty racist,” Beck said on his show in May. “It makes us big government guys. Just, you name it — it makes us that.”
In August, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol got into a heated debate on CNN with conservative commentator Kayleigh McEnany over Trump. “You’re supporting a man who is utterly unfit to be President of the United States,” Kristol said. “For a second in your personal life you would not tolerate him. A bully, a man of genuinely bad character!”
Erick Erickson, editor of right-wing site The Resurgent, had this to say about Trump and his supporters: “This is not a game. This is not team sport. This is about the future of the country. If Donald Trump was unfit last month, two months ago, or last September to be placed in front of the nuclear button, he is unfit this month, next month, and in November. And he is unfit.”
At a luncheon for the Federalist Society in June, Washington Post conservative columnist George Will said that he will no longer be registered as a Republican following Trump’s nomination. “This is not my party,” he said, noting that Paul Ryan’s endorsement of Trump was a factor in his decision to leave the party.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker says he will not vote for Trump or Clinton. In February, while voicing his support for Chris Christie during the primaries, Baker had this to say about Trump: “I think there’s a certain temperament and a certain collaborative nature that’s fundamental to somebody’s ability to succeed in government, and I question whether he has the temperament and the sense of purpose that’s associated with delivering on that.”
Former CIA and NSA head Michael Hayden was one of four Republican national security officials who signed a letter in August declaring they would not vote for Donald Trump, claiming he would “put at-risk our country’s national security and well-being.”
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk, whose seat is up for grabs in November, is the only sitting GOP senator who has pulled his support of Trump. He has said that he will vote for a write-in candidate, though he hasn’t decided who that would be. He has previously said he would write in David Petraeus and Colin Powell for his vote.
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