GOP will eat their own children, rather than lose the election...

GOP elite line up behind Donald Trump

‘It’s a pretty simple calculus: Do you want to win or do you want to lose?’ one operative says.

By Alex Isenstadt

The Never Trump moment is over.

While a small group of Republicans has wrung its hands raw over the choice between the GOP’s nominee and Hillary Clinton, the party’s firmament – social and intellectual conservatives, the lobbyist and donor class, powerful operatives and outside groups – is increasingly getting in line behind Donald Trump.

Never mind that many of them complain about his bombastic and unpredictable political style. The thawing has slowly but surely begun - and it’s visible everywhere -- from mega-donors like Foster Friess rallying Republican governors to Trump, to Mitt Romney’s allies agreeing to raise money for him, to leaders of the Never Trump movement conceding their cause is lost.

“I am slow-walking the Donald Trump candidacy. It’s a very deliberative process. You can’t beat Hillary Clinton with nothing, and the question is can we fundamentally energize conservatives quickly and can we use our joint desires to unite to find a path forward,” said Ken Blackwell, a former ambassador in the George W. Bush White House and key figure in conservative circles who formerly advised an anti-Trump super PAC. “That’s very methodically playing out.”

The biggest sea change may be taking place in the donor world. During the primary, Trump put Republican Party benefactors on notice, arguing they had far too much influence and pledging that he wouldn’t court and woo them – an attack that left many of them with a bad taste in their mouths. Yet, as they ponder the prospect of another Clinton presidency, many of the GOP’s most wealthy figures are drawing up plans to finance Trump’s campaign.

While attending a Republican Governors Association retreat in New Mexico this week, Foster Friess, a Wyoming investor who has given million to GOP candidates and causes over the years, announced that he would get behind the New York businessman, according to two people present.

“Trump’s our nominee. We’ve got to support him,” Friess, the primary funder of Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential bid, told a group of governors, operatives, and donors. “He’s better than Hillary, and I’m encouraging everyone to support him.” (Neither Friess nor a spokesman would comment.)

Others are getting involved. Andy Beal, a poker-playing Dallas investor whose net worth is said to top $11 billion, is expected to attend a June political briefing that’s being sponsored by a pro-Trump super PAC. And a team of influential donors, including former Republican National Committee finance chairs Elliott Broidy, Ron Weiser, and Ray Washburne, are expected to help raise money for a Trump fundraising committee that was established this week with the national party.

“Now that he’s the nominee, there’s a gradual recognition and understanding that we’re going to be helpful to him,” said Tom Tellefsen, a Los Angeles investor who was a major fundraiser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid.

Tellefsen, who helped Marco Rubio in the primary, acknowledged that many remained uncomfortable with Trump but said most big GOP donors would come around. He predicted that even those loyal to Romney, a loud Trump critic, would eventually open their wallets.

“There’s no doubt that he’s substantially different than any candidate that we’ve supported, and that’s a reality at play,” said Tellefsen, who is considering attending a Trump fundraiser being held next week in Southern California. “There’s plenty of time for people to look at him and for him to present himself.”

While some well-funded Republican groups are considering sitting out the presidential race – notably, those overseen by billionaires Charles and David Koch - others see an avenue for getting involved. The Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, for example, is considering whether to invest in the contest, according to one source familiar with the group’s planning. It has been encouraged by recent polling showing Trump competitive with Clinton nationally and in some swing states.

Steven Law, the group’s president and chief executive officer, said the chief focus remained on preserving the GOP’s Senate majority. But he said American Crossroads is also “analyzing what our role needs to be” in the presidential race.

Some of the party’s most prominent operatives, who spent months warning about the perils of his candidacy, are warming, too. During this week’s RGA meeting, Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican strategist who spent part of last year pitching donors on an anti-Trump TV campaign, delivered a presentation in which he argued that the New York businessman has a better than 50 percent chance of winning. The general election, he predicted, would be exceedingly negative – an environment Trump would prosper in.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is taking steps to court movement conservatives – a critical constituency which has long feared that Trump’s nomination would cause irreparable damage to their cause. Before introducing a list of possible Supreme Court picks this week, Trump’s advisers sought input from groups including the Judicial Crisis Network and the Heritage Foundation – a move designed to curry favor on an issue of great importance to social and intellectual conservatives.

For some, it worked. Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, a leading evangelical group, has long been a Trump skeptic. Last year, she approached possible donors to gauge support for an anti-Trump campaign. Then, in January, she signed a letter to Iowa caucus-goers urging them to “support anyone but Donald Trump,” and warning that he would be deeply adversarial to the evangelical cause.

Now, as Nance scrutinizes Trump’s Supreme Court possibilities, she sees a path to supporting him.

Trump is also winning praise for reassuring conservatives that he will not look to interfere with their desire to craft an official platform at the July convention that deviates from traditional GOP orthodoxy. His policy advisers, including anti-abortion activist John Mashburn, have begun reaching out to The National Republican Platform Project, a newly-formed organization that is focused on establishing a conservative platform.

The courtship is paying dividends. Two people involved in Conservatives Against Trump, a group that is devoted to finding a third-party candidate, said that as many as a dozen members had recently departed, convinced that its efforts were futile. The organization, which was co-founded by conservative commentator Erick Erickson and has been holding regular conference calls to discuss ways to derail Trump, suffered a blow when its favored would-be-candidate, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, took himself out of contention.

Deborah DeMoss Fonseca, a Conservatives Against Trump spokeswoman, disputed the figure, saying only a handful had left and that others had recently joined. The group, she insisted, had seen “new intensity in recent days.”

Yet, as people get used to Trump being the nominee, many believe it’s only a matter of time before holdouts get on board – if for no other reason than their dislike of Clinton.

“It’s a pretty simple calculus: Do you want to win or do you want to lose?” said American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, who was a political adviser in the Bush White House. “It’s inevitable that the vast majority of people will support him.”