The Lincoln Project

The Lincoln Project is a centrist American political action committee (PAC) founded in December 2019 by moderate conservatives and former Republican Party members who oppose Trumpism and 45th U.S. president Donald Trump. During the 2020 presidential election, it aimed to prevent the re-election of president Donald Trump, and to defeat incumbent Republican candidates running for re-election who had been loyalists to Trump. In April 2020, the committee endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. As of 2023, the committee is focused on preventing the non-consecutive re-election of Trump in the 2024 presidential election. History Before the 2020 election The committee was announced on December 17, 2019, in a New York Times op-ed by George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson. Other co-founders include Jennifer Horn, Ron Steslow, Reed Galen, and Mike Madrid. Conway is an attorney and the husband of Kellyanne Conway, at the time an advisor to Trump; Schmidt managed John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign; Weaver oversaw McCain's presidential campaign in 2000; and Wilson is a media consultant. All four are outspoken critics of Trump; Schmidt left the Republican Party in 2018. Jennifer Rubin, in a Washington Post op-ed, described the four founders as "Some of the most prominent NeverTrump Republicans". Horn is a Republican operative and former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Steslow is a marketing strategist and political consultant, Galen is an independent political consultant, and Madrid is a former political director for the California Republican Party. Galen serves as the Lincoln Project's treasurer. Sarah Lenti, a political consultant who had worked with Galen on the George W. Bush presidential campaign, was recruited as executive director. The committee is named for Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who fought to keep the country unified. On February 27, 1860, Lincoln delivered his Cooper Union speech in Manhattan during his campaign to be the first Republican president. Several members of the committee—Schmidt, Wilson, Horn, Galen, Madrid, and Steslow—spoke in the same venue on the 160th anniversary of that talk, from the lectern that Lincoln had used.