Hours before Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Philadelphia, Doug Elmets walked on to the stage. Just 18 months ago, his speech would have been unthinkable.



“It’s an honor to be here, and candidly, it’s also a shock,” said Elmets, a former spokesman and speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.

The existence of Republicans who support Clinton, such as Elmets, is one of many plot twists in an extraordinary presidential election cycle. Conservative men and women have rejected their natural nominee in favor of a candidate their party has spent two decades tearing down.

With less than 100 days left before election day, the Clinton campaign is accelerating its drive to recruit GOP donors, business leaders and foreign policy experts. According to people familiar with the effort, a visible coalition of independents and Republicans backing Clinton will make it easier for conservatives dismayed by Donald Trump to cast their ballots for a Democrat.

The Clinton campaign has been preparing for its Republican outreach effort for months. Around the start of the conventions, it went into gear. Since then, notable Republicans, military leaders and one GOP congressman have abandoned Trump and cast their lot with Clinton. Framing their defections as a moral imperative, the converts are urging fellow Republicans and independents to put “country over party” and join them on 8 November.

“Donald Trump’s demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character,” Meg Whitman, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard and a prominent Republican donor, said in a statement. “America needs the kind of stable and aspirational leadership Secretary Clinton can provide.”

Whitman was joined this week by billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman, who donated to Jeb Bush’s primary campaign; GOP representative Richard Hanna of New York; and Sally Bradshaw, a top adviser to Bush who said she would vote for Clinton if the race is close in Florida.

On Friday, Clinton was endorsed by Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, who used a New York Times op-ed to call Trump a “threat to our national security” and an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation”.

The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment.

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The former Reagan official Doug Elmets and the founder of Republican Women for Hillary Clinton, Jennifer Pierotti Lim, walk offstage after addressing the DNC. Photograph: Scott Audette/Reuters

Ever since Trump claimed his party’s nomination, Republican-backed groups for Clinton have cropped up. Among them are Republicans for Her 2016, founded by the lobbyist Craig Snyder; Republican Women for Hillary, led by Jennifer Pierotti Lim, director of health policy for the US Chamber of Commerce; and a grassroots group, R4C16, led by John Stubbs and Ricardo Reyes, former officials in the George W Bush administration.

“This year, the threat posed by Mr Trump compels us to consider what many of us never have: supporting the Democratic nominee for President,” R4C16 wrote on its website. The group has also documented the backlash its received for converting. “If you’re a Republican and you vote for Hillary do us all a favor, go straight to Hell!” one poster wrote.

It is not only by design that a flurry of Republicans are abandoning their party. Trump has had an extraordinarily bad week, beginning when he disparaged the Gold Star family of a fallen American soldier.

Trump was also described by Barack Obama as “unfit” and “woefully unprepared” to become president; initially refused to endorse House speaker Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain in their primaries; falsely claimed to have watched a video showing $400m being unloaded from a plane in Iran; ejected a crying baby from a rally in Virginia; accepted a purple heart from a veteran though he did not serve himself; suggested his daughter would “find another career” if she were harassed at work; and appeared unaware of that Russia had invaded Ukraine two years ago. Questions were also raised about whether his wife, Melania, had worked illegally in the US before 1996. The work in question was a collection of nude photos, republished by the New York Post.

I can’t see there being a whole lot of crossover from rank-and-file Republicans Reed Galen, Republican consultant

This all came after a week in which the Republican candidate for president called for Russia to hack and release the “missing” emails from the private server Clinton used while secretary of state, and asserted that Nato member countries should pay “their fair share” if America was to contribute fully to the alliance.

The noise arising from Trump’s self-inflicted controversies nearly drowned out criticism of Clinton for her claim that FBI director James Comey said her past statements about her email use were consistent and “truthful”. Republicans have used the controversy to raise doubts about her fitness for office and to suggest she operates above the law. Clinton said on Friday she may have “short-circuited” the characterization of Comey’s comments.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair, has deflected criticism, insisting that the campaign is in “good shape”. In July, the campaign said, Trump took his largest fundraising haul yet – $80m – but his campaign still struggles to match Clinton’s fundraising apparatus.

One veteran Republican consultant, Reed Galen, doubts Clinton’s campaign can overcome 25 years of mistrust among Republican voters, especially those who remember her husband’s administration.

“The trend of crossing party lines is happening among GOP elites – the establishment types – and GOP elected officials who are in safe districts or retired,” Galen said. “I can’t see there being a whole lot of crossover from rank-and-file Republicans.”

According to the latest McClatchy-Marist poll, if the election were held today, just 6% of voters for Clinton would identify as Republican. That number is unchanged from last month, ahead of the conventions. Galen said, however, that this could change dramatically – depending on what Trump does in the three months and as many presidential debates remaining before Election Day.

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Donald Trump pauses for thought in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

In Philadelphia, a star-spangled Democratic convention featured “U-S-A” chants and a retired four-star general, providing an opportunity for the party’s leaders to reach across the aisle. In a speech replete with patriotism and optimism, Obama invoked Reagan’s imagery of America as the “shining city upon a hill”, arguing that Trump’s message “wasn’t particularly Republican – and it sure wasn’t conservative”.

Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine made a more direct appeal. “If any of you are looking for the party of Lincoln,” he said, “we’ve got a home for you here in the Democratic party.”

Clinton and Kaine then took the message on the road, to factories and manufacturing plants across the rust belt, a region in which Trump is expected to perform well. At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, Sean Cornelius held a red sign that said “Republican for Hillary”.

“The choice is between a guy who invited a hostile nation to hack us and her,” Cornelius said. “It’s going to be a first.”