United States: Former Republican officials consider splitting from GOP to form new party

A number of mostly former Republican officials are discussing how to move the party forward in the aftermath of the Trump presidency and raising the possibility of a formal split from the GOP. Reuters first reported that dozens of these party faithful are in talks to form an anti-Trump third party. Two of the leaders, Evan McMullin, a former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference who ran for president in 2016 as an independent, and Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration Homeland Security official, told CBS News that that a decision on this has not been made yet. The discussions may also result in creating a faction within the GOP.

The group holding the talks consists of current and former elected officials, some from the past four Republican presidential administrations, as well as GOP leaders at the state and national level. More than 120 of them logged onto a Zoom call last Friday to talk about the party's future. McMullin said it included people who used to support President Trump, and not just people who opposed him.

McMullin said, after the insurrection, what we see now is a fourth to a third of a party desires a new direction. We now have a larger segment of the party to work with. But he conceded that there is still not enough support in the short term to change the direction of the party.

McMullin said 40% of those who participated in the call wanted to immediately form a new party, and 43% thought they should establish a new faction in the party to work within the GOP or independently of it. Both McMullin and Taylor acknowledged the difficulties of actually launching a third party, especially one that's viable in a political system dominated by two major parties.

Taylor said, we wouldn't have talked about it if we didn't think it was plausible. But at the same time, everyone is clear-eyed about the challenges. Third parties have been tried many times and have failed many times in this country.

A key question may be how receptive the Republican base is — at the moment, it is still devoted to Mr. Trump. A recent CBS News poll found 73% of Republicans said it was very or somewhat important that Republicans show loyalty to Mr. Trump right now. A third of Republicans said they would join Mr. Trump if he formed a new political party.

Taylor described the idea of the group is less to the right He thinks there's potential for more support than polls suggest. We read the energy at the grassroots level a different way. We see a lot of folks that are ready to turn the page and that's kind of where we feel the momentum is.