Trump’s Takeover of the Republican Party Is Almost Complete On Election Day in 2016, the Republican Party was divided against itself, split over its nominee for president, Donald J. Trump. In Ohio, a crucial battleground, the state G.O.P. chairman had repeatedly chided Mr. Trump in public, amplifying the concerns of Gov. John Kasich, a Republican dissenter. In New Hampshire, the party chairman harbored deep, if largely private, misgivings about her party’s nominee. The Republican Party of Florida was listing, hobbled by local feuds and a rift between donors loyal to Senator Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush and those backing the man who humiliated both in the primaries. Those power struggles have now been resolved in a one-sided fashion. In every state important to the 2020 race, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants are in firm control of the Republican electoral machinery, and they are taking steps to extend and tighten their grip. It is, in every institutional sense, Mr. Trump’s party. As Mr. Trump has prepared to embark on a difficult fight for re-election, a small but ferocious operation within his campaign has helped install loyal allies atop the most significant state parties and urged them to speak up loudly to discourage conservative criticism of Mr. Trump. The campaign has dispatched aides to state party conclaves, Republican executive committee meetings and fund-raising dinners, all with the aim of ensuring the delegates at next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are utterly committed to Mr. Trump. [Sign up for our politics newsletter and join the conversation around the 2020 presidential race.] To Joe Gruters, who was co-chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign in Florida and now leads the state party, the local G.O.P. is effectively a regional arm of the president’s re-election effort. “I’ve had probably 10 conversations with the Trump team about the delegate selection process in Florida,” Mr. Gruters said, adding of a potential Republican primary battle, “The base of the party loves our president, and if anybody runs against him, they are going to get absolutely smashed.” State and local Republican organizations typically operate below the radar of national politics, but they can be vital to the success of a presidential candidate. Party chairmen and their deputies are tasked with everything from raising money to deploying volunteers to knock on doors, and in many states they help choose delegates for the nominating convention. Image Val DiGiorgio is the chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, one of the most vulnerable states from Mr. Trump’s 2016 coalition.CreditHannah Yoon for The New York Times For Mr. Trump, who prevailed in 2016 as an outsider with little connection to his party’s electoral apparatus, the ability to control the levers of Republican politics at the state level could make the difference in a close election or a contested primary. It also leaves other Republicans with precious little room to oppose Mr. Trump on his policy preferences or administrative whims — on matters from health care to the Mexican border — for fear of retribution from within the party. Mr. Trump’s aides have focused most intently on heading off any dissent at the Charlotte convention: To that end, two of Mr. Trump’s top campaign aides, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, have worked quietly but methodically in a series of states where control of the local party was up for grabs. They have boosted Mr. Trump’s allies even in deep-blue states like Massachusetts, and worked to make peace between competing pro-Trump factions in more competitive states such as Colorado. The devotion to Mr. Trump was on clear display Saturday outside Denver, where the state party gathered to elect a new chairman. Though Mr. Trump’s unpopularity helped drive Colorado Republicans to deep losses last fall, there was no sign of unrest: Mr. Trump’s name was emblazoned on lapel pins and a flag toted by one candidate for the chairmanship, and his slogan — “Make America Great Again” — was printed on the red hat from which the candidates drew lots to determine their speaking order. Mr. Trump himself stayed out of the race, and campaign aides sent the White House a short memo last month urging the president not to pick sides between allies after Representative Ken Buck, a deeply conservative candidate, lobbied administration officials for support. But when Mr. Buck claimed victory in the race for chairman, he described his mission in terms of unflinching loyalty to the president. “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” Mr. Buck said. “That is what my job is.” Mr. Trump faces at least a quixotic challenge in the Republican primaries from William F. Weld, a moderate former governor of Massachusetts, and other Republicans have toyed with entering the race. But advisers to Mr. Trump view it as an urgent priority to maintain Republican support: With low approval ratings among voters at large, including educated whites who once leaned Republican, Mr. Trump can ill afford additional fractures on the right. Image Devotion to President Trump was on display Saturday outside Denver, where the Colorado Republican Party met to select a new chairman for the coming presidential campaign.CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times So far, loyalty has prevailed. “There is no challenge to the president,” declared John Watson, a former supporter of Mr. Kasich who now leads the Georgia Republican Party. “The party is in near-unanimous lock step in support of him, certainly at the activist and delegate level.” In some respects, the shift toward Mr. Trump in Republican state organizations has been organic, driven by the president’s immense popularity with the party’s most committed voters. In Arizona, an emerging presidential swing state, conservative activists in January ejected a chairman aligned with the G.O.P. establishment in favor of Kelli Ward, a former Senate candidate with fringe views who tied herself closely to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump and his aides have also taken a more active hand in shaping the party leadership around the country, mostly to their own great advantage, according to half a dozen Republicans briefed on the Trump campaign’s loyalty operation. A division of the Trump campaign known as the Delegates and Party Organization unit has closely tracked state party leadership elections and occasionally weighed in to help a preferred contender. In Michigan, for instance, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, recently endorsed a former state legislator, Laura Cox, to take over Michigan’s discombobulated state party. The Trump campaign has also taken steps to blunt the influence of a few Republican governors who are hostile to the president. In Massachusetts, Trump aides worked in January to help a hard-line candidate, Jim Lyons, win the chairmanship against a candidate linked closely to the state’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, who is a critic of Mr. Trump. (As a candidate, Mr. Lyons vowed to “make the Massachusetts Republican Party great again.”) In Maryland, where Gov. Larry Hogan has mused about challenging Mr. Trump, presidential loyalists in the party apparatus are prepared to flout Mr. Hogan’s wishes in selecting delegates. In Maryland and some other states, convention delegates are selected by a combination of primary voters and members of the state party committee — constituencies overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Trump. “No other candidate, no matter if it’s Gov. Hogan, Bill Weld or anybody else, will get one single delegate out of Maryland,” said David Bossie, the state’s R.N.C. committeeman and an adviser to Mr. Trump. Image “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” said Representative Ken Buck, the Colorado G.O.P. chairman. “That is what my job is.” CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times Some states are so fully in the grips of Trump enthusiasts that the campaign has sought to keep Mr. Trump neutral in local races, out of concern that he could alienate one supportive faction or another. In Rhode Island last weekend, the campaign dispatched an aide to answer questions from party activists about Mr. Trump’s view of the race for state chairman, after Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, reportedly made calls on behalf of a candidate who was ultimately defeated. The Trump campaign made clear that Mr. Spicer had been acting on his own, a person familiar with the conversations said. Last month, several top Trump strategists, including Mr. Stepien and Mr. Clark, informed the president directly on the efforts to lock down party organizations for his re-election, people briefed on the meeting said. In a statement, Mr. Clark described the operation as part of a long run-up to the 2020 convention. “Like any good campaign operation, we are working to ensure that state party chairs and delegates reflect the will of Republican voters, who support President Trump in record numbers,” Mr. Clark said. “Our goal is to pave the way for a convention in Charlotte that gives the president a multiday platform to share his achievements with 300 million Americans.” Though the Republican National Committee has stopped short of formally endorsing Mr. Trump, state chairmen elected with the help of Mr. Trump’s campaign have defended him fiercely, even from Mr. Weld’s long-shot effort. When the former Massachusetts governor rolled out his campaign, Mr. Lyons blasted him harshly, as did Stephen Stepanek, a former co-chairman for the Trump campaign in New Hampshire who now leads that state’s Republican Party. That hard-edge approach has stirred some discomfort in New Hampshire, where some traditional Republicans prize the state’s reputation for political independence and have resisted efforts to quash an open primary. Steve Duprey, a member of the Republican National Committee from the state, hosted Mr. Weld there in late March and argued that New Hampshire’s “special role” as an early-voting state required it to be open to candidates besides Mr. Trump. He said in an interview he believed primary competition was healthy, as a general matter. “Our job is to be neutral and treat them all equally, period,” argued Mr. Duprey, who was a close adviser to John McCain. There are still elements of the G.O.P. that have yet to fall fully in line behind the president, Republicans acknowledge. The party suffered serious defections in 2018 among moderate white voters who have historically tended to support Republicans, and some of the party’s traditional financial backers have not yet committed to supporting him in 2020. Advisers to Mr. Trump acknowledge that mobilizing the party’s major-donor base remains one of the most important challenges for his campaign. But there is no comparable reticence among the Republican Party’s field captains in the states. At the meeting in Colorado over the weekend, Vera Ortegon, the state’s R.N.C. committeewoman, alluded to the president’s nagging Republican critics in the form of a stern warning. “If you know any Never Trumpers,” Ms. Ortegon said, “send them to me.” via NYT > Home Page http://bit.ly/2WrfIpH April 3, 2019 at 06:57AM DMT.NEWS, @ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTIN, @dmtbarbershop April 3, 2019 at 09:11AM - DMT NEWS

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Home / DMT.NEWS / DMTBarberShop / DMTBeautySpot / Trump’s Takeover of the Republican Party Is Almost Complete On Election Day in 2016, the Republican Party was divided against itself, split over its nominee for president, Donald J. Trump. In Ohio, a crucial battleground, the state G.O.P. chairman had repeatedly chided Mr. Trump in public, amplifying the concerns of Gov. John Kasich, a Republican dissenter. In New Hampshire, the party chairman harbored deep, if largely private, misgivings about her party’s nominee. The Republican Party of Florida was listing, hobbled by local feuds and a rift between donors loyal to Senator Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush and those backing the man who humiliated both in the primaries. Those power struggles have now been resolved in a one-sided fashion. In every state important to the 2020 race, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants are in firm control of the Republican electoral machinery, and they are taking steps to extend and tighten their grip. It is, in every institutional sense, Mr. Trump’s party. As Mr. Trump has prepared to embark on a difficult fight for re-election, a small but ferocious operation within his campaign has helped install loyal allies atop the most significant state parties and urged them to speak up loudly to discourage conservative criticism of Mr. Trump. The campaign has dispatched aides to state party conclaves, Republican executive committee meetings and fund-raising dinners, all with the aim of ensuring the delegates at next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are utterly committed to Mr. Trump. [Sign up for our politics newsletter and join the conversation around the 2020 presidential race.] To Joe Gruters, who was co-chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign in Florida and now leads the state party, the local G.O.P. is effectively a regional arm of the president’s re-election effort. “I’ve had probably 10 conversations with the Trump team about the delegate selection process in Florida,” Mr. Gruters said, adding of a potential Republican primary battle, “The base of the party loves our president, and if anybody runs against him, they are going to get absolutely smashed.” State and local Republican organizations typically operate below the radar of national politics, but they can be vital to the success of a presidential candidate. Party chairmen and their deputies are tasked with everything from raising money to deploying volunteers to knock on doors, and in many states they help choose delegates for the nominating convention. Image Val DiGiorgio is the chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, one of the most vulnerable states from Mr. Trump’s 2016 coalition.CreditHannah Yoon for The New York Times For Mr. Trump, who prevailed in 2016 as an outsider with little connection to his party’s electoral apparatus, the ability to control the levers of Republican politics at the state level could make the difference in a close election or a contested primary. It also leaves other Republicans with precious little room to oppose Mr. Trump on his policy preferences or administrative whims — on matters from health care to the Mexican border — for fear of retribution from within the party. Mr. Trump’s aides have focused most intently on heading off any dissent at the Charlotte convention: To that end, two of Mr. Trump’s top campaign aides, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, have worked quietly but methodically in a series of states where control of the local party was up for grabs. They have boosted Mr. Trump’s allies even in deep-blue states like Massachusetts, and worked to make peace between competing pro-Trump factions in more competitive states such as Colorado. The devotion to Mr. Trump was on clear display Saturday outside Denver, where the state party gathered to elect a new chairman. Though Mr. Trump’s unpopularity helped drive Colorado Republicans to deep losses last fall, there was no sign of unrest: Mr. Trump’s name was emblazoned on lapel pins and a flag toted by one candidate for the chairmanship, and his slogan — “Make America Great Again” — was printed on the red hat from which the candidates drew lots to determine their speaking order. Mr. Trump himself stayed out of the race, and campaign aides sent the White House a short memo last month urging the president not to pick sides between allies after Representative Ken Buck, a deeply conservative candidate, lobbied administration officials for support. But when Mr. Buck claimed victory in the race for chairman, he described his mission in terms of unflinching loyalty to the president. “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” Mr. Buck said. “That is what my job is.” Mr. Trump faces at least a quixotic challenge in the Republican primaries from William F. Weld, a moderate former governor of Massachusetts, and other Republicans have toyed with entering the race. But advisers to Mr. Trump view it as an urgent priority to maintain Republican support: With low approval ratings among voters at large, including educated whites who once leaned Republican, Mr. Trump can ill afford additional fractures on the right. Image Devotion to President Trump was on display Saturday outside Denver, where the Colorado Republican Party met to select a new chairman for the coming presidential campaign.CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times So far, loyalty has prevailed. “There is no challenge to the president,” declared John Watson, a former supporter of Mr. Kasich who now leads the Georgia Republican Party. “The party is in near-unanimous lock step in support of him, certainly at the activist and delegate level.” In some respects, the shift toward Mr. Trump in Republican state organizations has been organic, driven by the president’s immense popularity with the party’s most committed voters. In Arizona, an emerging presidential swing state, conservative activists in January ejected a chairman aligned with the G.O.P. establishment in favor of Kelli Ward, a former Senate candidate with fringe views who tied herself closely to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump and his aides have also taken a more active hand in shaping the party leadership around the country, mostly to their own great advantage, according to half a dozen Republicans briefed on the Trump campaign’s loyalty operation. A division of the Trump campaign known as the Delegates and Party Organization unit has closely tracked state party leadership elections and occasionally weighed in to help a preferred contender. In Michigan, for instance, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, recently endorsed a former state legislator, Laura Cox, to take over Michigan’s discombobulated state party. The Trump campaign has also taken steps to blunt the influence of a few Republican governors who are hostile to the president. In Massachusetts, Trump aides worked in January to help a hard-line candidate, Jim Lyons, win the chairmanship against a candidate linked closely to the state’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, who is a critic of Mr. Trump. (As a candidate, Mr. Lyons vowed to “make the Massachusetts Republican Party great again.”) In Maryland, where Gov. Larry Hogan has mused about challenging Mr. Trump, presidential loyalists in the party apparatus are prepared to flout Mr. Hogan’s wishes in selecting delegates. In Maryland and some other states, convention delegates are selected by a combination of primary voters and members of the state party committee — constituencies overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Trump. “No other candidate, no matter if it’s Gov. Hogan, Bill Weld or anybody else, will get one single delegate out of Maryland,” said David Bossie, the state’s R.N.C. committeeman and an adviser to Mr. Trump. Image “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” said Representative Ken Buck, the Colorado G.O.P. chairman. “That is what my job is.” CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times Some states are so fully in the grips of Trump enthusiasts that the campaign has sought to keep Mr. Trump neutral in local races, out of concern that he could alienate one supportive faction or another. In Rhode Island last weekend, the campaign dispatched an aide to answer questions from party activists about Mr. Trump’s view of the race for state chairman, after Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, reportedly made calls on behalf of a candidate who was ultimately defeated. The Trump campaign made clear that Mr. Spicer had been acting on his own, a person familiar with the conversations said. Last month, several top Trump strategists, including Mr. Stepien and Mr. Clark, informed the president directly on the efforts to lock down party organizations for his re-election, people briefed on the meeting said. In a statement, Mr. Clark described the operation as part of a long run-up to the 2020 convention. “Like any good campaign operation, we are working to ensure that state party chairs and delegates reflect the will of Republican voters, who support President Trump in record numbers,” Mr. Clark said. “Our goal is to pave the way for a convention in Charlotte that gives the president a multiday platform to share his achievements with 300 million Americans.” Though the Republican National Committee has stopped short of formally endorsing Mr. Trump, state chairmen elected with the help of Mr. Trump’s campaign have defended him fiercely, even from Mr. Weld’s long-shot effort. When the former Massachusetts governor rolled out his campaign, Mr. Lyons blasted him harshly, as did Stephen Stepanek, a former co-chairman for the Trump campaign in New Hampshire who now leads that state’s Republican Party. That hard-edge approach has stirred some discomfort in New Hampshire, where some traditional Republicans prize the state’s reputation for political independence and have resisted efforts to quash an open primary. Steve Duprey, a member of the Republican National Committee from the state, hosted Mr. Weld there in late March and argued that New Hampshire’s “special role” as an early-voting state required it to be open to candidates besides Mr. Trump. He said in an interview he believed primary competition was healthy, as a general matter. “Our job is to be neutral and treat them all equally, period,” argued Mr. Duprey, who was a close adviser to John McCain. There are still elements of the G.O.P. that have yet to fall fully in line behind the president, Republicans acknowledge. The party suffered serious defections in 2018 among moderate white voters who have historically tended to support Republicans, and some of the party’s traditional financial backers have not yet committed to supporting him in 2020. Advisers to Mr. Trump acknowledge that mobilizing the party’s major-donor base remains one of the most important challenges for his campaign. But there is no comparable reticence among the Republican Party’s field captains in the states. At the meeting in Colorado over the weekend, Vera Ortegon, the state’s R.N.C. committeewoman, alluded to the president’s nagging Republican critics in the form of a stern warning. “If you know any Never Trumpers,” Ms. Ortegon said, “send them to me.” via NYT > Home Page http://bit.ly/2WrfIpH April 3, 2019 at 06:57AM DMT.NEWS, @ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTIN, @dmtbarbershop April 3, 2019 at 09:11AM

Trump’s Takeover of the Republican Party Is Almost Complete On Election Day in 2016, the Republican Party was divided against itself, split over its nominee for president, Donald J. Trump. In Ohio, a crucial battleground, the state G.O.P. chairman had repeatedly chided Mr. Trump in public, amplifying the concerns of Gov. John Kasich, a Republican dissenter. In New Hampshire, the party chairman harbored deep, if largely private, misgivings about her party’s nominee. The Republican Party of Florida was listing, hobbled by local feuds and a rift between donors loyal to Senator Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush and those backing the man who humiliated both in the primaries. Those power struggles have now been resolved in a one-sided fashion. In every state important to the 2020 race, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants are in firm control of the Republican electoral machinery, and they are taking steps to extend and tighten their grip. It is, in every institutional sense, Mr. Trump’s party. As Mr. Trump has prepared to embark on a difficult fight for re-election, a small but ferocious operation within his campaign has helped install loyal allies atop the most significant state parties and urged them to speak up loudly to discourage conservative criticism of Mr. Trump. The campaign has dispatched aides to state party conclaves, Republican executive committee meetings and fund-raising dinners, all with the aim of ensuring the delegates at next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are utterly committed to Mr. Trump. [Sign up for our politics newsletter and join the conversation around the 2020 presidential race.] To Joe Gruters, who was co-chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign in Florida and now leads the state party, the local G.O.P. is effectively a regional arm of the president’s re-election effort. “I’ve had probably 10 conversations with the Trump team about the delegate selection process in Florida,” Mr. Gruters said, adding of a potential Republican primary battle, “The base of the party loves our president, and if anybody runs against him, they are going to get absolutely smashed.” State and local Republican organizations typically operate below the radar of national politics, but they can be vital to the success of a presidential candidate. Party chairmen and their deputies are tasked with everything from raising money to deploying volunteers to knock on doors, and in many states they help choose delegates for the nominating convention. Image Val DiGiorgio is the chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, one of the most vulnerable states from Mr. Trump’s 2016 coalition.CreditHannah Yoon for The New York Times For Mr. Trump, who prevailed in 2016 as an outsider with little connection to his party’s electoral apparatus, the ability to control the levers of Republican politics at the state level could make the difference in a close election or a contested primary. It also leaves other Republicans with precious little room to oppose Mr. Trump on his policy preferences or administrative whims — on matters from health care to the Mexican border — for fear of retribution from within the party. Mr. Trump’s aides have focused most intently on heading off any dissent at the Charlotte convention: To that end, two of Mr. Trump’s top campaign aides, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, have worked quietly but methodically in a series of states where control of the local party was up for grabs. They have boosted Mr. Trump’s allies even in deep-blue states like Massachusetts, and worked to make peace between competing pro-Trump factions in more competitive states such as Colorado. The devotion to Mr. Trump was on clear display Saturday outside Denver, where the state party gathered to elect a new chairman. Though Mr. Trump’s unpopularity helped drive Colorado Republicans to deep losses last fall, there was no sign of unrest: Mr. Trump’s name was emblazoned on lapel pins and a flag toted by one candidate for the chairmanship, and his slogan — “Make America Great Again” — was printed on the red hat from which the candidates drew lots to determine their speaking order. Mr. Trump himself stayed out of the race, and campaign aides sent the White House a short memo last month urging the president not to pick sides between allies after Representative Ken Buck, a deeply conservative candidate, lobbied administration officials for support. But when Mr. Buck claimed victory in the race for chairman, he described his mission in terms of unflinching loyalty to the president. “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” Mr. Buck said. “That is what my job is.” Mr. Trump faces at least a quixotic challenge in the Republican primaries from William F. Weld, a moderate former governor of Massachusetts, and other Republicans have toyed with entering the race. But advisers to Mr. Trump view it as an urgent priority to maintain Republican support: With low approval ratings among voters at large, including educated whites who once leaned Republican, Mr. Trump can ill afford additional fractures on the right. Image Devotion to President Trump was on display Saturday outside Denver, where the Colorado Republican Party met to select a new chairman for the coming presidential campaign.CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times So far, loyalty has prevailed. “There is no challenge to the president,” declared John Watson, a former supporter of Mr. Kasich who now leads the Georgia Republican Party. “The party is in near-unanimous lock step in support of him, certainly at the activist and delegate level.” In some respects, the shift toward Mr. Trump in Republican state organizations has been organic, driven by the president’s immense popularity with the party’s most committed voters. In Arizona, an emerging presidential swing state, conservative activists in January ejected a chairman aligned with the G.O.P. establishment in favor of Kelli Ward, a former Senate candidate with fringe views who tied herself closely to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump and his aides have also taken a more active hand in shaping the party leadership around the country, mostly to their own great advantage, according to half a dozen Republicans briefed on the Trump campaign’s loyalty operation. A division of the Trump campaign known as the Delegates and Party Organization unit has closely tracked state party leadership elections and occasionally weighed in to help a preferred contender. In Michigan, for instance, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, recently endorsed a former state legislator, Laura Cox, to take over Michigan’s discombobulated state party. The Trump campaign has also taken steps to blunt the influence of a few Republican governors who are hostile to the president. In Massachusetts, Trump aides worked in January to help a hard-line candidate, Jim Lyons, win the chairmanship against a candidate linked closely to the state’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, who is a critic of Mr. Trump. (As a candidate, Mr. Lyons vowed to “make the Massachusetts Republican Party great again.”) In Maryland, where Gov. Larry Hogan has mused about challenging Mr. Trump, presidential loyalists in the party apparatus are prepared to flout Mr. Hogan’s wishes in selecting delegates. In Maryland and some other states, convention delegates are selected by a combination of primary voters and members of the state party committee — constituencies overwhelmingly supportive of Mr. Trump. “No other candidate, no matter if it’s Gov. Hogan, Bill Weld or anybody else, will get one single delegate out of Maryland,” said David Bossie, the state’s R.N.C. committeeman and an adviser to Mr. Trump. Image “The key is that we make sure that the voters of Colorado understand the great job the president has done,” said Representative Ken Buck, the Colorado G.O.P. chairman. “That is what my job is.” CreditRachel Woolf for The New York Times Some states are so fully in the grips of Trump enthusiasts that the campaign has sought to keep Mr. Trump neutral in local races, out of concern that he could alienate one supportive faction or another. In Rhode Island last weekend, the campaign dispatched an aide to answer questions from party activists about Mr. Trump’s view of the race for state chairman, after Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, reportedly made calls on behalf of a candidate who was ultimately defeated. The Trump campaign made clear that Mr. Spicer had been acting on his own, a person familiar with the conversations said. Last month, several top Trump strategists, including Mr. Stepien and Mr. Clark, informed the president directly on the efforts to lock down party organizations for his re-election, people briefed on the meeting said. In a statement, Mr. Clark described the operation as part of a long run-up to the 2020 convention. “Like any good campaign operation, we are working to ensure that state party chairs and delegates reflect the will of Republican voters, who support President Trump in record numbers,” Mr. Clark said. “Our goal is to pave the way for a convention in Charlotte that gives the president a multiday platform to share his achievements with 300 million Americans.” Though the Republican National Committee has stopped short of formally endorsing Mr. Trump, state chairmen elected with the help of Mr. Trump’s campaign have defended him fiercely, even from Mr. Weld’s long-shot effort. When the former Massachusetts governor rolled out his campaign, Mr. Lyons blasted him harshly, as did Stephen Stepanek, a former co-chairman for the Trump campaign in New Hampshire who now leads that state’s Republican Party. That hard-edge approach has stirred some discomfort in New Hampshire, where some traditional Republicans prize the state’s reputation for political independence and have resisted efforts to quash an open primary. Steve Duprey, a member of the Republican National Committee from the state, hosted Mr. Weld there in late March and argued that New Hampshire’s “special role” as an early-voting state required it to be open to candidates besides Mr. Trump. He said in an interview he believed primary competition was healthy, as a general matter. “Our job is to be neutral and treat them all equally, period,” argued Mr. Duprey, who was a close adviser to John McCain. There are still elements of the G.O.P. that have yet to fall fully in line behind the president, Republicans acknowledge. The party suffered serious defections in 2018 among moderate white voters who have historically tended to support Republicans, and some of the party’s traditional financial backers have not yet committed to supporting him in 2020. Advisers to Mr. Trump acknowledge that mobilizing the party’s major-donor base remains one of the most important challenges for his campaign. But there is no comparable reticence among the Republican Party’s field captains in the states. At the meeting in Colorado over the weekend, Vera Ortegon, the state’s R.N.C. committeewoman, alluded to the president’s nagging Republican critics in the form of a stern warning. “If you know any Never Trumpers,” Ms. Ortegon said, “send them to me.” via NYT > Home Page http://bit.ly/2WrfIpH April 3, 2019 at 06:57AM DMT.NEWS, @ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTIN, @dmtbarbershop April 3, 2019 at 09:11AM

April 03, 2019 , ,

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