For as long as Donald Trump has been in politics, there has been a coterie of Republicans who are opposed to him, known as “never Trumpers.” This was the case during Trump’s initial run for president in 2016, and has continued to be the case throughout his two presidencies, with anti-Trump Republicans opposing Trump in the media, in Congress, and in other arenas.
The “never” in never-Trump has sometimes been a temporary condition. Marco Rubio, one of the original never-Trumpers from 2016, is now Trump’s secretary of state. Ted Cruz was a never-Trumper until he became a Trump supporter late in the 2016 campaign. Many other Trump opponents on the GOP side have opted to exit politics. But what that group has found, over and over again, is that the appetite on the Republican side for anti-Trump sentiment has proven limited.
How anti-MAGA Republicans are plotting to take back the partyhttps://t.co/05ZJ1Edr0x
— The Hill (@thehill) February 24, 2026
Per The Hill, a group has emerged to look towards the future of the GOP after Trump leaves office. The group is called Our Republican Legacy (ORL), and they’re forming a “shadow RNC.” The group has the goal of “working to regain control of the state GOP structures one by one — with the ultimate goal of making a non-MAGA candidate the Republican presidential nominee in 2028.” The group held a conference last week in National Harbor, Md., near Washington.
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“About two dozen attendees in the room and more online listened to addresses from the likes of commentator Charlie Sykes and former Republican National Committee Chair and MS NOW co-host Michael Steele. Pollster Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research gave a rundown of public perception of Trump’s policies,” the Hill said of the event.
“My bet is if they’re still living and the ship rights itself, and there’s established a better footing, they’ll come back, because principally those values still remain important to them. It’s just politically, they’re operating and operationalizing in a different space,” Steele said at the conference.
The names of several potential 2028 candidates were floated, including ” former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson… Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. All are people who remain Republicans but have tangled with Trump in the past.
The question remains, though, of whether any of those people, or the anti-Trump project more broadly, has any wide purchase in the modern Republican Party.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
