A group called “Republicans for a New President” has announced a convention will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, that will run concurrently with the Republican National Convention that will renominate Donald Trump.
The convention is in efforts to push people into voting for another president that isn’t Trump.
Organized by Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer who ran an independent campaign for president in 2016, the gathering is expected to bring together groups disaffected by the president, including Republicans for the Rule of Law and The Lincoln Project.
“The Trump administration has failed, and that’s provided us with an opportunity to offer an alternative vision,” McMullin told The Washington Post.
According to the report, The Convention on Founding Principles is scheduled to run concurrently with the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start Aug. 24 at the Spectrum Center.
Bob Orr, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice, will also be taking part in the convention. He told the publication that the group had been looking at a venue at Queens University of Charlotte, but the coronavirus pandemic may change those plans.
“The pandemic has thrown a curve to preconceived ideas of doing it,” he said Saturday. “But we’re committed to making the effort. … Originally it was, like, how many people do we think we could attract? Now it’s, what’s the safest way to do this?”
Orr calls the convention “an effort to give a dramatically different perspective on what the Republican Party has been historically and what it should be in the future.”
“We all agree Trump has captured what used to be the Republican Party,” he said.
According to organizers of the event, “The convention will be tasked with deliberating and ratifying a new vision for the future of Republican leadership and political renewal in America.”
“The Republican Party under Trump is simply not articulating or advocating on these really critical principles of government or liberty,” Orr said.
Charles Jeter, a former GOP legislator, said he was contacted by McMullin Friday after an online column drew his attention.
“I am not a Never-Trumper or an Always-Trumper,” Jeter wrote in Cardinal & Pine, which bills itself as a progressive news site. “I just don’t understand how the party that I love has been hijacked by a huckster who cares more about personal power than he ever will about America.”
“I committed to do whatever I could to help him,” Jeter said Saturday.
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