Sen. Cory Gardner has endorsed Donald Trump, the Republican nominee with whom he once engaged in a Twitter feud, for president.
Gardner has long shown reservations about his party’s selected leader, but, as originally reported by the Colorado Springs Gazette, said Friday that his first priority was fidelity to his party.
“I’m voting Republican up and down the ticket,” Gardner said. “A Republican president will make a difference, even a Republican president named Donald Trump.”
Back in April, Trump posted a series of tweets denigrating the Colorado caucus process and the way national delegates are selected.
In a nine-tweet riposte, Gardner defended the state party and chastised Trump for throwing a “temper tantrum.” Gardner, who had endorsed Trump’s then-opponent Ted Cruz, told The Denver Post that he “got tired of watching Donald Trump besmirch the thousands and thousands and thousands of Colorado Republicans.”
He made the big announcement at a Colorado Springs fundraising event for Senate candidate Darryl Glenn, who is trying to replicate Gardner’s 2014 success in unseating a Democratic incumbent.
In contrast to Gardner’s party-loyalty rationale for his endorsement, Glenn is a firm Trump supporter. At the National Western Conservative Summit in July, Glenn said, “While we may not agree on everything, I proudly stand with Donald Trump.”
Gardner’s endorsement leaves Rep. Mike Coffman as the state’s highest-profile Republican officeholder still withholding support for Trump.
Photo Credit: Bipartisan Policy, Creative Commons, Flickr
This will not be forgotten…We will hang this on him in four years…
Gardner has chosen party over country, power over principle. It doesn’t matter if Trump has strong ties to Russia, or that Trump is the Lyin’ King, or that his tax plan will bankrupt the country, or that Trump is a racist, nativist like George Wallace.
How delightful that Sen. Gardner endorsed Mr. Trump this past week, just in time for the Trump campaign to morph back to letting Trump be Trump. The tepid “I back the Republican” support ought to increase the number of Republican Trump supporters who are suspicious of him and increase the number of Republican moderates who realize they have no voice in the party.
Welcome to the new show, Republican Family Feud.