GOP Activist Takes The #NeverTrump Fight To The Minnesota Convention

Dave Thul, a conservative activist in Minnesota, has never been a fan of Donald Trump.

He wasn’t a fan when Trump was still a political novelty who demanded President Barack Obama release his birth certificate. Thul was an immediate opponent when Trump launched his campaign last June, but he assumed even that was just another ego trip to grab headlines and drum up free publicity for the real estate mogul’s latest business venture.

Now that Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, Thul is taking the fight to this weekend’s Minnesota Republican Party convention.

“The worst thing that could happen is Donald Trump either loses or wins but then voters get so many people turned off by him, our candidates down the ballot end up getting defeated by Democrats,” he said in a Thursday phone interview with TPM.

Thul couldn’t stand by as while his state party embraced the bombastic billionaire, so he resigned Monday as chair of the Steele County GOP.

Freed of his obligation to hold the party line, Thul plans to introduce a measure that would bar the Minnesota GOP from spending a dime to support Trump in the general election at a Friday meeting of the state party’s central committee, which sets party spending.

“The best outcome would be the state party ignores the Trump candidacy and concentrates on the races we can actually win,” he said.

If Thul’s measure is adopted, the Minnesota GOP would be the first state party to rebuke the presumptive GOP nominee in that manner.

A spokesperson for the Minnesota Republican Party did not respond Thursday to multiple requests for comment.

For Thul, a seasoned party organizer and Iraq combat veteran, the goal of the measure is both ideological and logistical. A Trump presidency has real potential to set conservative organizers’ efforts back for years to come, he argues, and the state party should pour every dollar available into down-ballot races threatened by a Trump nomination.

Thul, who first backed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), then Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and finally Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), also doesn’t buy that Trump is a true conservative. He said putting Trump in the White House would be “disastrous” for both country and party.

“You now have people in the Republican Party that believe the way to win a campaign is to be a shock jock like Donald Trump is, who would devolve our party into the lowest common denominator,” he told TPM.

Thul is confident his anti-Trump plan could find traction among other state Republican leaders. After initial pushback from other organizers using the well-worn line that opposing Trump is the same as working to elect Democrat Hillary Clinton, Thul said he heard from other conservatives, including party leaders, who thought they alone believed Trump was a “terrible” candidate.

Minnesota also went for Rubio over Trump in its March 1 caucuses, providing the freshman senator with his first of just three primary wins before he suspended his presidential bid.

Working with Conservatives for Candidates of Character, a loosely organized group of Minnesota conservative activists who oppose Trump, Thul is weighing whether to additionally introduce a formal “character rebuke” motion at the state party convention.

“It boils down to character and conservatism,” Thul said. “I don’t like his character, I don’t like the way he uses personal attacks, his pettiness. He doesn’t believe in conservative ideals like limited government, personal freedom, or freedom of the press, for Pete’s sake. Those ideals are the reason I’m active in the Republican Party.”