Dozens of Republicans mulling breakaway party as Trump holds grip on GOP

A group of US Republicans are considering splitting from the party and form a third party as former president Donald Trump’s post-election conduct has created political tensions and division within the party.

Some 120 US current and former Republican officials attended an online conference call last week to discuss the formation of a center-right breakaway party, reports said Thursday.

Four people involved in the talks said the group is concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.

The breakaway party would function on a base of "principled conservatism," including adherence to the US Constitution and the rule of law, according to four people involved in the meeting.

They said the Republican Party is unwilling to stand up to Trump and “his attempts to undermine US democracy.”

The officials attended the early stage of discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Trump, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

The talks reportedly highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trump’s claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to Trump, but others seek a new direction for the party.

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Just over 40% of those on last week’s discussions backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party, said Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election.

Another option under discussion, he said, is to form a “faction” that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.

“The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new,” McMullin said.

Rebellious Republicans are ‘losers’

A Trump spokesman, Jason Miller, however, called the GOP senators and officials who are departing from the party as “losers.”

“These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden,” he said.

Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party.

If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.

The attempts to create a new party are underway as previous similar moves to create national third parties failed in the US.

“But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” one participant said.

After Trump left the White House — as he was angry and isolated, due to his refusal to concede to his defeat in November’s presidential election — he claimed that he would create his own political party.

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But soon after, his spokesman Miller said the former president "has made clear his goal is to win back the House and Senate for Republicans in 2022.”

“There's nothing that's actively being planned regarding an effort outside of that,” he added.

Last month, lawmakers in both Democratic and Republican parties voted for Trump’s impeachment — for the second time during his one-term presidency— over a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, as the lawmakers were certifying Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

The former president’s impeachment trial began in the US Senate on Tuesday.

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