According to a Saturday report from The New York Times , former President George W. Bush and a number of other prominent Republicans will not support Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Sources close to the Bush family told the publication that the former president will not back Trump in November, while his younger brother Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, is not yet sure how he will vote.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump on one of the charges in the Senate’s impeachment trial, does not plan on backing Trump. The senator will reportedly either cast another ballot or write in his wife’s name.
Cindy McCain, the widow of late Sen. John McCain, will reportedly not vote for Trump either. According to individuals familiar with her thinking, McCain will cast her ballot for former Vice President Joe Biden , the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
Rick Davis, a longtime McCain adviser, said that the late senator’s wife is hesitant to oppose Trump publicly because she fears backlash.
“Picking a fight with Trump is no fun. You know where her heart is. Whether she articulates that or not is still an open question,” he said.
Former Republican House Speakers Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner have not yet backed Trump either, but it remains unclear who they will support in the November election.
Republican Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida openly told the NYT that he is considering supporting Biden for president. Rooney said that many of those who backed Trump in 2016 did so because they did not want to support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and noted that there are concerns Biden could cave to pressure from progressives and move left on some issues.
“What he’s always been is not scary. A lot of people that voted for President Trump did so because they did not like Hillary Clinton. I don’t see that happening with Joe Biden — how can you not like Joe Biden?” he said.
As the publication noted, the Biden campaign has repeatedly stressed that part of its 2020 strategy is wooing so-called moderate Republicans. The former vice president will reportedly formalize his efforts later in the campaign, when he plans on launching his “Republicans for Biden” coalition.
Biden is ahead of Trump in most polls. According to a Washington Post / ABC News survey released last week, the former vice president has surged to a double-digit lead nationwide.