Everyone knew he was a cad. The media is out to get him. The allegations seem suspicious and politically motivated.

Those were the reactions of key swing state GOP leaders one day after a new set of revelations about Donald Trump’s conduct toward women dominated the news cycle.


Interviews with more than a dozen state and county Republican officials and party activists found most of them closing ranks around their embattled nominee, despite the growing number of women alleging he made unwanted sexual advances, and the recent release of a video that featured him boasting about groping women with impunity.

“It just does really all seem manufactured,” said Will Estrada, chairman of Virginia’s Loudoun County, a Washington D.C. suburb where Trump has struggled to connect. “If it came out that he actually groped a woman or something like that and it’s confirmed, that’s kind of a deal-breaker for me. That’s a crime and that’s terrible. But he apologized for what he said on the tape. That’s good enough for me.”

“Well, come on. If all of this stuff happened, where were they 35 years ago? It’s piling on at this point,” said Karen Fesler, an Iowa GOP activist. “The man has been in the public eye the last 40 years, if this happened to these people, why didn’t they say something then?”

Far from shaking their faith in the nominee, the raft of sexual assault allegations against Trump this week – from two women who told the New York Times that Trump assaulted them years earlier to a former Miss Universe contestant who claimed Trump groped her in 2013 to a People Magazine reporter who delivered a first-person account of a sexual assault in Trump’s mansion -- seemed to reaffirm it. Many party officials poked holes in the women's stories and raised questions about the motives and bias of the media organizations printing the accounts.

The woman who told the Times that Trump groped her on a plane in the early 1980s “just doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Estrada. Trump doesn’t fly commercial, he noted. (The Times account asserted that Trump did not yet own a fleet of private aircraft at that time).

Colorado GOP Chairman Steve House said he rejected the assault claims out of hand because they originated in The New York Times. Bill Donnelly, chairman of suburban Philadelphia’s Montgomery County GOP, said the claims were “just allegations.”

Other GOP officials criticized what they saw as the media’s disproportionate focus on Trump while insisting Hillary Clinton was given a pass.

“Most people are just miffed at the fact that they don’t condone or like what’s said -- but what they’re really upset about is how the media isn’t focused on what [Clinton]’s done,” said Ohio’s Lake County GOP chairman Dale Fellows, referencing the 2012 attack in on Americans in Benghazi, her support for abortion and her husband’s infidelities. “Not one person has called me from our central committee or elected officials or anybody else and said anything about it other than let’s get him elected because she can’t be president.”

Marian Krumberger, GOP chair of Wisconsin’s Brown County, said Bill Clinton “desecrated the Oval Office, and we’re going to get all worked up because [Trump] talks dirty?”

As much as anything else, Republicans expressed a sense of resignation that their nominee was flawed -- and observed that voters were already well aware of that.

“You have a war breaking out between Obama and Russia, and you’re fussing about somebody’s improper actions with a female?” said Tamara Scott, Republican National Committeewoman from Iowa. She said it’s “tragic if there was any impropriety,” but added, “The future of this country is at stake. I get that he’s not a Boy Scout. I’m looking for a bulldog.”

“It just gets to the point where it’s oversaturation,” said Estrada, the Loudoun County chairman. “We all kind of knew Donald Trump is not a saint kind of character.”

The defiant reactions from many state and local officials puts many of these party officers at odds with some of the party’s most prominent officeholders — from New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte to Arizona Sen. John McCain to Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, all of whom are seeking reelection and disavowed Trump over the weekend.

In some ways, local GOP officials are channeling Trump himself. The mogul stormed into West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday skewering his accusers and threatening to punch back against his critics even harder.

“This is a conspiracy against you, the American people, and we cannot let this happen or continue,” he said at a rally in front of thousands of screaming supporters. “This is our moment of reckoning as a society and as a civilization itself.”

Like Trump, many local officials insist that the fresh round of allegations aren’t breaking through—at least not in the same way the Trump tape did. Voters, they argue, are fatigued by what they say is the media’s breathless reaction to every Trump scandal.

The Republican National Committee also reaffirmed its full-throated support for Trump in a Monday conference call, beating back suggestions that the committee may be looking for an escape hatch.

Several Republican county leaders said the new series of allegations are serving to energize Trump’s base. They talked about floods of supporters asking for signs and offering to volunteer, calls of support – or condemning GOP leaders who have abandoned Trump – giving the party a heightened sense of energy heading into the final 26 days of the election season.

“It’s not like people are demoralized. They just feel like they’re in a battle for their lives,” said Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Cincinnati-area Hamilton County GOP.

The line of defense around Trump is not without its holes. While the base may be rallying around the nominee, there’s acknowledgment that the recent furor surrounding Trump’s behavior and attitude toward women will prove costly with the very groups he has struggled to win over.

Veteran Pennsylvania GOP strategist Charlie Gerow said the assault allegations are poised to further drive away moderate Republican suburbanites – especially college-educated women – who live in the populous Philadelphia suburbs.

“It’s not over, but clearly is not where anybody in the Trump campaign would want it to be,” said Gerow, who heard about the revelations Wednesday night and said he wasn’t surprised. “The pathway back has been made exponentially more difficult. He has just exacerbated every problem he had here.”

Speaking of Trump’s ability to win Pennsylvania, he said, “Anything is possible, but I don’t think Vegas is putting short odds on this.”

In North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump where Clinton has clung to narrow lead, operatives say his path has gotten markedly steeper.

“There’s always the unexpected and the miraculous, but it’s a lot tougher for Trump now. Can he win North Carolina? Yes. Is it harder than it was a week ago? Yes, by a lot,” said Carter Wrenn, a veteran North Carolina Republican operative.

Former Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call said he was consumed by a feeling of overwhelming sadness for his party when he heard news of the allegations on the radio while driving home Wednesday evening.

“I’m hearing this from many, many Republican women, including spouses of longtime party leaders and elected officials who are really conflicted about voting for Trump,” he said.

Call worried the allegations swirling around Trump could leave a permanent stain on the Republican Party’s identity.

“A lot of good conservatives in my church are just saying they can’t pull the lever, check the box, in support of a man who engages in this sort of behavior,” he said, adding, “I feel very conflicted, I have been for some time, in part because of these allegations.

“For me, it’s a real tragedy, because this is the greatest country in the world,” he said. “Our race for president is headed headlong into the gutter.”