Anti-Donald Trump Republicans Struggle With How To Best Reject Nominee

WASHINGTON: A growing number of high-profile Republicans and rank-and-file voters on Wednesday struggled with how best to reject Donald Trump's divisive candidacy, as the nominee dealt with fallout from his remark that gun rights activists could stop Hillary Clinton from nominating liberal US Supreme Court justices.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, said the party was in "uncharted waters" and called for leaders to start looking for ways to remove Trump from the ticket.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll taken Aug. 5-8, showed that nearly one-fifth of 396 registered Republicans said they want Trump to drop out of the race for the White House and another 10 percent said they "don't know" whether the Republican nominee should or not.

Clinton's campaign moved to bring disenchanted Republicans into the fold by announcing an official intraparty outreach effort on behalf of the Democratic nominee.

Strategists cautioned that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove Trump from the Republican ticket.

"It's wishful thinking to believe the Republicans are going to replace its nominee after the convention. People are grasping at straws," Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist unaffiliated with Trump, told Reuters.

Respondents to the Reuters/Ipsos poll who support Trump's ouster acknowledge the unlikelihood of that happening. James Rohrscheib, 74, a registered Republican and retired US Navy officer from Washington state, told Reuters the reality is the Nov. 8 election will be a "tough one."

"I'm in a quandary as to who I am going to vote for," Rohrscheib said.

PROMINENT DEFECTIONS

Clinton's campaign now has a website for Republicans and political independents to sign up to pledge their support, listing 50 prominent Republicans and independents who have endorsed her so far, including Meg Whitman, a high-profile Republican fundraiser and chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, and former US Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut, also a Republican, were among those that announced their support on Wednesday.

"He doesn't understand the basic requirements of being president of the United States. And, frankly, he's dangerous," Shays told MSNBC in an interview.

Earlier this week, 50 Republican national security officials signed an open letter questioning Trump's temperament, calling him reckless and unqualified to be president.

Other top Republicans, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine this week, have disavowed Trump but said they cannot back Clinton.

Trump has dismissed the defections and criticism as an unsurprising reaction of the so-called Washington elite to his drive to change the status quo.

"The support he has from Republicans almost seems obligatory rather than voluntary," Mike Smith, a Republican voter and Reuters/Ipsos poll respondent, said of Trump's remaining defenders.

"I'm almost at the point where I think I'm going to vote for Hillary. I don't like her," said Smith, a 74-year-old retiree who lives in Clearwater, Florida. "But Mr. Trump is making me very nervous."

RESET ABANDONED

Republican strategist and Trump supporter Ford O'Connell said Trump has "dug himself a deep hole" and that to win the election he will need to "make it a referendum on Hillary Clinton and the 'rigged system.'"

Trump was seeking to do just that by using an economic policy speech after a series of missteps that included a prolonged clash with the parents of a fallen Muslim American soldier.

But Trump's remark at a Tuesday rally about gun rights activists sparked a torrent of criticism on social media that he was effectively calling for Clinton's assassination.

"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks," Trump said at the rally at the University of North Carolina. "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know," he continued. The US Constitution's Second Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms.

Clinton's campaign called Trump's remark "dangerous." Trump's campaign said the comment was misinterpreted and that he was encouraging gun activists to use their political power.

The US Secret Service, which investigates threats against sitting presidents and party nominees, has had "more than one conversation" with the Trump campaign about his remark, CNN reported on Wednesday.

Trump's comment and the resulting backlash occurred as Reuters/Ipsos polling showed some 44 percent of 1,162 registered voters believe Trump should exit the race, and that as of Tuesday, Clinton led Trump by more than 7 percentage points, up from a 3-point lead late last week.

Republican Party rules and state laws would make it difficult at this juncture to replace Trump on ballots ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

The party would have to host another nominating convention or have delegates vote following the same process used at a formal convention. In addition, some states require that names on ballots be certified earlier than others. The deadline in Ohio is Aug. 10; Florida is Sept. 1. Both are critical battleground states.

A more likely scenario would be a replay of the 1996 presidential race, when Republican nominee Bob Dole was badly trailing President Bill Clinton. The party essentially deserted Dole by urging its congressional candidates to cut ties and concentrate on maintaining a Republican majority in the US Congress.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)