Donald Trump could be on the brink of being handed a hammer blow as a new memo showed the Koch group is looking for a new candidate to support in the 2024 Presidential election. The network founded by billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch has been one of the most influential donor groups for over 15 years, as hundreds of ultrawealthy conservatives back it. The Koch organisation has invested over $500 million in Republican candidates in recent years but has never stepped into the presidential debate before.
But a memo penned by Emily Seidel, the chief executive of the largest nonprofit group in the network, Americans for Prosperity, suggested the brothers are ready to move their support in a bid to “turn the page on the past.”
The message, shared with affiliated activists and donors, read: “The Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles. And the American people are rejecting them.
“And to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.
“The American people have shown that they’re ready to move on, and so A.F.P. will help them do that.”
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While not directly naming Trump, who remains the most prominent Republican in the race for the nomination, the message read as a clear warning the network is prepared to move away from him if a stronger candidate emerges.
Seidel noted that the organisation should learn from a key lesson of the 2022 mid-terms “that the loudest voice in each political party sets the tone for the entire election. In a presidential year, that’s the presidential candidate.”
Trump faced criticism last year after a majority of the candidates he endorsed in the run-up to the mid-terms failed to win their seats.
He is so far the only Republican to have officially declared his intentions to run in 2024 but Nikki Haley, who served as Ambassador to the UN under Trump, is expected to confirm she is running next week.
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The Koch network officially opposed some of President Trump’s policies while he was in office, including the imposition of tariffs.
A donation from the organisation would provide any would-be Trump opponent with a major boost thanks to the financial resources that would become available to their campaign.
The group had previously avoided coming out in support of a presidential candidate because of the many ideologies making up its donor pool, and the variety could ultimately prove to be a major obstacle in uniting behind a common individual.
In 2016, Charles Koch, who remains more active on the political scene than his brother David, sat on the sidelines after Trump won the GOP nomination and compared having to choose between the businessman and Hillary Clinton to having to pick between “cancer or a heart attack.”
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Of Trump, Koch suggested that “he’s a fine fellow underneath,” but noted that his “guiding principles are antithetical”.
He later apologised publicly for the network’s financial backing of the Republican Party as he insisted the group had “abandoned partisanship”.
But Seidel noted in the memo the organisation would focus on backing a Republican candidate after she noted Democrats “have already chosen their path for the presidential — so there’s no opportunity to have a positive impact there.”
She added that the Americans for Prosperity group is “prepared to support a candidate in the Republican presidential primary who can lead our country forward, and who can win.”
