Tea Party’s activists divided over Trump’s credentials

Published 5:00 pm Monday, March 7, 2016

WASHINGTON – As Donald Trump looks to land a knock-out punch in the upcoming Florida primary, some activists are questioning his conservative credentials.

Jenny Beth Martin, CEO of Tea Party Patriots, a sprawling national organization, told the loyalists gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference south of Washington last weekend that Trump “loves himself more than the country. He loves himself more than the Constitution.”

“He does not love you or me. He does not love the Tea Party,” she said, citing Trump’s past support for abortion rights and a pledge to weaken libel laws.

Despite such admonitions, Danny Joyner, commander of the Tea Party–affiliated Alabama Patriots, is undeterred in his support for the New York real estate and casino developer.

“Donald Trump is the man,” Joyner said in a phone interview. “He’s an alpha-male.”

The conflict between their views illustrate a rift among Tea Party activists. Aside from questions about whether Trump really is a conservative, activists are also split over how best to express anger at Republican leaders whom they feel have betrayed them.

How those activists line up could have a significant effect on coming Republican primaries – notably on March 15 in Florida, where Sen. Marco Rubio is trying to keep his campaign viable by finishing strongly in his own state.

Some Tea Party activists, including Joyner, lump Trump’s campaign rivals, Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, with the Republican establishment.

Their crime? Being in office — never mind that they got there with Tea Party support.

“Cruz is a good guy,” even though he has taken money from special interests to get elected, Joyner said. “Eventually, they’re going to come to collect.”

That drives some Tea Party stalwarts crazy.

“We were against the big-government Republicans, like Arlen Specter. We weren’t talking about people like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul,” said Brandon Steinhauser, who organized the Tea Party’s 2009 Taxpayer March on Washington.

As of two weeks ago, Trump was winning over Florida’s Tea Party.

A Feb. 25 poll by Quinnipiac University found he had support of more than half of those Republicans who also identified themselves as Tea Party supporters. Cruz had 28 percent among that group. Rubio, who was carried into the Senate in 2010 with Tea Party support, was backed by just 13 percent.

Since the poll was taken, those worried about Trump’s conservative credentials have been trying to whittle away at his support among the ranks of activists. His rivals picked up on the theme at the weekend conference, where Trump canceled a speech that had been scheduled for Saturday to instead campaign in Kansas.

Rubio drew wild cheers when he said, in reference to Trump, that the party could not allow itself to be “hijacked by someone who is not a conservative.” 

It’s unclear how little, or how much, Tea Party support Trump received in his victories in last week’s Super Tuesday primaries. No exit poll numbers were available in which Republican voters were asked about their connection with the Tea Party.

Joyner said he believes Trump won the movement’s vote in the Alabama primaries.

But Jim Jess, vice chairman of the Georgia Tea Party, said he knows of no activists who backed Trump, even though he also won that state’s primary.

“Most of the folks I know don’t want to take the chance that Trump may end up being a big liberal,” he said.

Looking ahead to Florida, Judith Welker, a leader of the Broward County Tea Party, said some in her group are also turned off by the tone of Trump’s rhetoric – something that Joyner said can be forgiven.

“Even a fine horse is going to buck once in a while,” he responded. “It’s just in their blood.”

The Tea Party movement began in 2009 in response to anger over new President Barack Obama’s policies. It was credited with electing hard-line conservatives to Congress in 2010 and throwing out of office Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whom activists considered too moderate.

Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Tea Party’s largest political committee, Tea Party Express, said Trump’s supporters reflect a faction that still adheres to the movement’s original goal:  “Throw everybody out. Even if Ronald Reagan is in office, throw him out, too.”

They view Trump as an alternative to Republican candidates — a sense reflected in polls of voters leaving the ballot box on Super Tuesday, when Trump won 7 of 11 Republican primaries.

Trump led the field among Republican voters who said they feel betrayed by the party. A majority of Republicans also said they preferred an outsider instead of an experienced politician.

However, Russo said another camp has emerged in the Tea Party. Republican Scott Brown’s election to the Senate from Massachusetts in January 2010 inspired many in the movement to believe they could elect people into office, instead of simply throwing out those in power.

That camp is more supportive of officials like Rubio and Paul, whom they helped elect later that year, and Cruz, who won his seat in 2013.

For Rubio, the problem is that many who oppose Trump may be moving toward Cruz. The Texas senator won a straw poll at the weekend conference, with Rubio finishing second and Trump third.

Many in the Tea Party still resent Rubio over his involvement in a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight,” who backed an immigration bill that included a path to citizenship for those illegally in the United States.

“You’re going to ask how in the world did (Rubio) go from being the darling of the Tea Party to the Tea Party being against him,” Joyner said. “Look what he did. He did the Gang of Eight.

“Once you see somebody lie to us, we quietly say, ‘That’s it,’ and we pick some other guy,” he said.

Trump on Monday began running an attack ad against Rubio, calling him “another corrupt, all-talk politician.”

Welker said Rubio has “strong values,” but many in the Tea Party feel let down.

“They feel a lack of trust toward him,” she said.

Rubio did not address the immigration controversy in his speech to conservative activists last weekend, but Russo said it came up in private meetings.

Russo said the senator told him that it was a tactical maneuver: He had qualms with the proposal, but it was the best bill that he could negotiate in a Democratic Senate. He’d hoped it would be changed by the Republican House.

Russo said he’s satisfied with the answer.

But, he noted, “You never gain from explaining. It’s a burden he’s had to deal with.”

Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C. reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com