Koch network to back alternative to Trump after sitting out recent primaries - The Washington Post

Comment on this storyThe network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House.

“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday.

The Koch network now joins the Club for Growth, another of the largest outside spenders, and several of the party’s biggest individual donors such as finance billionaires Kenneth C. Griffin and Stephen A. Schwarzman in signaling their opposition to Trump’s current campaign.

To avoid a repeat of that outcome, the network plans to endorse a single candidate by the end of this summer, according to a person familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

In the years since the Koch network stepped back from presidential primaries, many of its top donors drifted away toward other outfits or their own causes, and many of its most prominent strategists and operatives such as Marc Short, Tim Phillips and Mike Roman moved on to other jobs.

The plan was unveiled to donors this weekend at a meeting of the Koch network in the resort city of Palm Springs, Calif. Elected officials present included Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.