Rep. Trent Franks' (pictured in 2013) letter aims to rally the establishment around either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz in an effort to defeat Donald Trump. | AP Photo Rep. Franks circulating letter calling for Cruz or Rubio to drop out of race

A senior House Republican is asking fellow lawmakers to sign on to a letter that urges either Sen. Marco Rubio or Sen. Ted Cruz to drop out of the presidential race for the good of the GOP.

Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, sent the letter to fellow Republicans Wednesday evening. He's asking would-be signers to back his push to rally the establishment around either the Florida or Texas senator in an effort to defeat Donald Trump, the current frontrunner for the GOP nomination.


The letter argues that one candidate should continue on in the presidential race while the other is named a vice presidential candidate.

"We call upon all national security, free-market, and pro-family conservatives to boldly rally around the two of you together and ask you both to answer the call of statesmanship and decide between yourselves which shall be the candidate for President and which shall be the candidate for Vice President,” the letter says.

Congressional Republicans have broadly rallied behind Rubio or Cruz for 2016, but both face a narrow path to victory if Trump continues to dominate the primary contests. The Manhattan businessman is expected to sweep many of the Super Tuesday contests next week.

Establishment GOP leaders are beginning to resign themselves to the fact that Trump will likely be the nominee, but Franks’ letter highlights the wariness many Republicans feel about having the mogul as the party’s standard-bearer.

He argues that Trump is “incontrovertibly, the weakest general election candidate in the Republican field” and without a unified effort from GOP lawmakers, a Trump candidacy could catapult Democrat Hillary Clinton to the White House.

"Now is a time for choosing — for you, and for us," the letter states. "The choice now in front of Republicans and conservatives alike is whether to allow our anger with the status quo to cause us to jump from the frying pan into the fire and cast our lots with a man who affirms he believes in many of the ideals we hold dear and trust that he, a self-proclaimed dealmaker and a man whose record is anything but conservative, will make no deals that will violate our deepest and most cherished principles."

Franks goes on, “The laws of mathematics will not be repealed in this election cycle. The mathematics in this equation are clear to the reasoned mind: The two of you can unite and win together or remain apart and fail together. For the sake of our country, the conservative cause, and future generations, we adjure you both to unite.”

The Arizona Republican is highly critical of Trump — who has yet to garner any real support among congressional Republicans. Two GOP lawmakers, Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York, endorsed Trump on Wednesday but on the Hill, both Rubio and Cruz have significantly larger bases of support.

Franks is a member of the influential House Freedom Caucus — a cadre of 40 of the most conservative lawmakers in Congress. Members of the Freedom Caucus have routinely questioned Trump’s conservative credentials, even questioning early on in the cycle if the New Yorker was actually a Republican.

In the letter, Franks suggests that Trump is more interested in being president than serving in public office, writing that “the stakes are too high to make his first public office president of the United States.”

