A group of former US president George W. Bush administration and campaign officials have launched a new super PAC supporting former US vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, the latest in a growing number of Republican groups to come out in support of Biden over US President Donald Trump.
The group, 43 Alumni for Biden, has recruited at least 200 former White House officials, campaign aides and Cabinet secretaries who worked under Bush to join the push against the Republican incumbent.
They are planning to roll out supportive testimonial videos featuring high-profile Republicans and launch a voter turnout effort in key states, aimed at turning out disaffected Republican voters. News of the group was first reported by Reuters.
Photo: Reuters
Kristopher Purcell, who worked in the Office of Communications in the White House and in the US Department of State during the Bush administration, said many of the members of the group still consider themselves Republicans, but see the need to defeat Trump as beyond their personal politics.
“You don’t have to agree with a president on all of his policy decisions or agenda. We ask them to go to the White House and do what they think is in the best interest of the country. That’s what we as alumni of George W. Bush did, and we think Joe Biden will deliver that as well,” he said.
The group has been in touch with the Biden campaign and other Republican groups opposed to Trump to coordinate some of its activities going forward, and it has alerted Bush’s office of their activities, though it remains unaffiliated with the former president directly.
In a statement, Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign’s director of press communications, said: “This is the swamp — yet again — trying to take down the duly elected president.”
“President Trump is the leader of a united Republican Party where he has earned 94 percent of Republican votes during the primaries — something any former president of any party could only dream of,” she said.
Still, this is just the latest group of Republicans supporting Biden to come out publicly amid criticism of Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and race relations.
Two groups, Republican Voters Against Trump and the Lincoln Project, have already been airing advertisements in key states boosting Biden and attacking Trump.
A group of Republican operatives opposed to Trump last month launched Right Side PAC, which is aimed at turning out disenchanted Republican voters.
Meanwhile, Biden on Wednesday said that the Democratic Party has assembled a group of 600 lawyers and thousands of other people to prepare for possible “chicanery” ahead of November’s election.
“We put together 600 lawyers and a group of people throughout the country who are going into every single state to try to figure out whether chicanery is likely to take place,” Biden said on a videoconference with donors to his campaign.
“We have over 10,000 people signed up to volunteer. We’re in the process of getting into the states in question to train them to be in a polling place,” he said.
A senior political adviser and top lawyer for Trump’s campaign, Justin Clark, said Biden is lying and stoking fear, while Democrats are trying to “fundamentally change” how elections are conducted, an apparent reference to their support for widespread mail-in voting.
“They are inserting chaos and confusion into our voting process because it is the only way they can win,” Clark said in a statement, adding that the president is committed to “fair and free elections.”
In other developments, Biden’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and associated state parties raised US$141 million last month and brought in twice that amount for the full second quarter, topping the hauls from Trump and Republicans in the those same periods.
The take is the biggest yet for either candidate during the campaign for this year’s election.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee raised a combined US$131 million last month. Their total for the full second quarter was US$266 million.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg
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