AP Photo GOP braces for a post-Iowa collision Top party members are urging struggling 2016 candidates to drop out and unite around someone who can take on Cruz and Trump.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The bruised and battered Republican Party establishment is bracing for a collision — with the candidates running under its banner.

With the GOP political class growing increasingly worried that insurgents Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are becoming hard to stop, some in the party say the time is near for three lagging establishment hopefuls — Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich — to reassess their candidacies and help the party unite around one contender.


The most widely talked-about scenario is that the establishment lane will narrow to Marco Rubio, who polls show has the most support among the mainstream candidates. The Florida senator spent his final campaign appearances here presenting himself as the lone figure who can unite the Republican Party and defeat the Democratic nominee.

Yet, with the first votes of the primary season just hours away from being cast, the struggling trio of establishment candidates insist they have little interest in dropping out any time soon — and, to the contrary, are mapping out long primary campaigns that will take them far beyond Iowa and New Hampshire. On Sunday, some of those hopefuls and their allied super PACs reported substantial fundraising sums that will allow them to power forward well into the primary calendar.

In recent weeks, Rubio’s advisers and backers — who have long banked on the prospect that the party would ultimately coalesce around him, even as the candidate distances himself from the establishment — have grown increasingly frustrated by the ongoing division.

It's now apparent to many in the GOP’s upper ranks that the party will remain divided for some time.

“None of the ‘establishment’ candidates got into this because ‘the establishment’ told them to,” said Christian Ferry, who served as campaign manager for Lindsey Graham’s presidential bid. “I think it is impossible to think that the interests of their campaign will not dictate when they get out, on their terms — not the establishment’s terms.”

The tension comes amid mounting concerns among top party members about the impact Trump and Cruz would have on the GOP’s prospects should either become the nominee. Last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan convened around 40 top Republican donors and operatives at a posh hotel and resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The retreat brought together a number of GOP power players, including 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, prominent GOP fundraiser Spencer Zwick and columnist Fred Barnes.

The unfolding 2016 election was a major topic of discussion. On Friday, according to three sources present, the group gathered for a presentation held by David Wasserman, an analyst for the Cook Political Report. At one point, several attendees said, Wasserman flipped to a slide that outlined Trump’s potentially damaging impact on the party in down-ballot congressional contests and held that Republicans would likely retain control of the House but a Trump nomination would seriously complicate the party's plans. Many GOP members, he said, would have no choice but to repudiate the real-estate mogul and would need to spend millions to distinguish themselves from him. Ryan was among those in the audience.

As attendees filtered out of the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, several said the message had come through loud and clear. “They got it,” one person who attended said.

Now, with the establishment lane divided among a handful of rival candidates, some Republicans are telling the presidential hopefuls that they’ll soon need to take a hard look at their viability.

“There will be a rising chorus to cull the field that starts after Iowa, gets louder after New Hampshire and hits full throttle after South Carolina with the objective of giving us our best chance to beat Hillary,” said Henry Barbour, an influential Republican National Committee member from Mississippi who has repeatedly spoken out about the need for the party establishment to unite around a single candidate. “We cannot afford to nominate someone who will lose the general election.”

No matter what happens in Iowa, most in the GOP’s upper echelons say the real pressure to drop out won’t come until after the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9. Bush, Christie and Kasich have all made the famously independent-minded state the cornerstone of their primary strategy, spending weeks at a time there and investing millions of dollars.

“The candidates have been working hard for over a year and they owe it to their donors to stay in through the first in the nation primary,” said Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s chief political strategist.



Beyond New Hampshire, though, the environment will likely begin to change. One Republican campaign adviser, who requested anonymity to describe the party’s sensitive internal deliberations, said there would be “enormous pressure from donors and elected officials on the also-rans post-New Hampshire to drop out.”

For now, the candidates are trying to knock one another out of contention. In recent days, super PACs supporting Bush, Kasich, Christie, and Rubio have all released commercials attacking one another. On Sunday, the pro-Christie America Leads released a hard-hitting commercial attacking Kasich for his past employment at Lehman Brothers, a defunct investment firm that played a key role in the financial crisis.

In the GOP’s top ranks, there is persistent speculation about when, not whether, Bush will end his bid. The former Florida governor has failed to generate momentum, yet he maintains a stable of loyal donors who, once freed from Bush’s campaign, would be able to supply another establishment candidate with millions of dollars in contributions.

Yet there is little indication that Bush will drop out immediately after New Hampshire. Those close to the former governor say he is preparing a vigorous campaign in South Carolina, which votes on Feb. 20. He has secured the endorsement of Graham, one of the state’s two senators. And there is increasing talk among Bush’s closest advisers that former President George W. Bush, whose South Carolina win paved the way for his 2000 GOP nomination, will campaign in the state. (Bush himself has said he “hopes” his brother hits the trail.)

“We are leading the establishment lane in South Carolina in the latest polls,” said Bush spokesman Tim Miller.

Those who’ve been briefed on Bush’s plans say he’s thinking well beyond South Carolina, pointing out that his campaign has waged a vigorous effort to get him on primary ballots throughout the country. He will also have money: Over the weekend, Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, disclosed that it still had $58 million in cash on hand — a significant sum far outpacing its counterparts.

Kasich is also looking beyond New Hampshire, a state where he has been steadily gaining momentum. The Ohio governor has been building an organization in Michigan, a Midwestern state where his advisers believe his independent style could have appeal. In that state, Kasich has tapped two prominent pols, state Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof and state House Speaker Pro Tem Tom Leonard, to serve as his campaign chairs. Michigan votes on March 8.

Like Bush, Kasich is also collecting cash for his super PAC. Over the past two weeks, the pro-Kasich group New Day for America has collected $4 million from six donors, including San Francisco investor Greg Wendt and Abigail Wexner, the spouse of Ohio retail executive Les Wexner.

A Kasich spokesman, Chris Schrimpf, said the governor had no plans to drop out. “We have already mapped out our days in South Carolina following the New Hampshire primary and our delegate strategy in March,” he said. “We have a message and plan to secure the nomination.”

As for Christie, while he has struggled with fundraising — he reported having just $1 million on hand at the close of 2015 — he, too, has begun organizing in South Carolina. And, no matter how he fares in New Hampshire, Christie’s advisers say he will move forward.

“We will do well in New Hampshire and will move on to South Carolina immediately the next day,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a Christie fundraiser.

Yet, for all the calculations and maneuverings of the Republican candidates, there’s another reason why the GOP establishment is struggling to coalesce around a single candidate: It isn’t as strong as it once was.

The party's top players have spent months trying — without success — to figure out how to halt Trump and Cruz’s momentum.

“The establishment doesn’t have the power to suggest, much less compel, anything,” said Alex Castellanos, a longtime Republican strategist who served as an adviser to Mitt Romney. “If they did, they wouldn’t have to: This process wouldn’t look as it does now.”