Trumps VP?

(CNN)Huddled around a corner table during happy hour at the swanky St. Regis Hotel bar in downtown Washington, five young Republicans busily brainstormed how they could help Hillary Clinton become the next president of the United States.



The group included an unlikely gang of pro-Clinton foot soldiers, including a Mississippi-born Southern Baptist who got her start in GOP politics as an intern in the second Bush White House, a conservative health care policy analyst who has volunteered for anti-abortion causes and a former president of the Cornell University College Republicans.

Over glasses of wine and champagne Monday night, they kicked off the first steering committee meeting for a new organization: "Republican Women for Hillary."

Their motivation? Stop Donald Trump.


"It's really important that Republican leaders, especially Republican women leaders, stand up right now and say we're not OK with Trump representing our party," said Jennifer Lim, a group founder who works at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has spent much of her life volunteering for Republican causes and campaigns. "This is not a position I ever wanted to find myself in. But it's important that when things like this happen that people speak up."


Faced with a choice between Clinton and Trump, some Republicans have begrudgingly agreed to support him while others are simply opting out of the election. But for these women who founded the group, (and one man who has joined in solidarity), Trump's bombastic style, offensive rhetoric toward women and minorities, slapdash policy "suggestions" risk destroying the party.


This is the post-primary Never Trump movement in action. Their new organization, which is not affiliated with the Clinton campaign, is part support group and part activist hub: They intend to host off-the-record social events for like-minded conservatives and sponsor get-out-the-vote efforts for Clinton. They started in May by launching accounts on Facebook and Twitter and are planning to make an appearance at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia next mon

Making the switch to openly support a Clinton for president wasn't a decision they came to lightly, the group's members said.

"It has been tough for me to come to this point where I can vote for a candidate who has been very against what I've been working for for most of my professional career," said Meghan Milloy, who works for the conservative American Action Forum think tank and has formerly campaigned for Republicans like Trent Lott, Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour. "That being said, I can't vote for someone like Donald Trump because he's overtly racist and misogynist."


Lim said she intends to knock on doors, make phone calls for Clinton and will donate to the Democratic campaign, a step she has never taken in her life.


It is Republican women like these that Clinton has made a concerted effort to reach during as part of her campaign.