Clinton to form ‘Republicans for Hillary’ group to exploit anti-Trump anger

Hillary Clinton will assemble a “Republicans for Hillary” group as she tries to seize on the turmoil Donald Trump’s nomination as the Republican’s presidential candidate has caused within the GOP.

The move is part of a sharp turn to the right planned by Clinton’s campaign, after she was forced to adopt a left-wing stance by Bernie Sander’s challenge for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Priorities USA Action, a pro-Clinton “super PAC” will try to woo wealthy Republican donors who are alienated by the prospect of Trump as the party’s standard bearer in November, the New York Times reported.

Clinton is also cultivating links with prominent Republican figures she got to know during her time as US secretary of state in the Obama administration. These include Mark Salter, a senior advisor to John McCain, the defeated Republican candidate in the 2008 election who has already declared his support for Clinton following Trump’s nomination.

They also include Robert Gates, a former US defence secretary in both George W Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations, and David Petraeus, a former CIA director who has predicted Clinton would make a “tremendous president”.

Her husband Bill Clinton – still popular among blue-collar voters from his time as president – will “come out of retirement and be in charge” of creating jobs in economic black sports. Clinton will also target working-class white women who tend to vote Republican but who have been disenchanted by Trump’s reputation for sexism.

“I invite a lot of Republicans and independents who I’ve been seeing on the campaign trail, who’ve been reaching out to me, I invite them to join with Democrats,” Clinton said in an interview with CNN. “Let’s get off the red [Republican] or the blue [Democrat] team. Let’s get on the American team.”

The move is a striking turn after Clinton spent the last year trying to mobilize the liberal wing and labour leaders in the Democratic Party. However, her campaign is confident that the young people and liberals backing Senator Bernie Sanders will swing behind Clinton in November, at least out of revulsion for Trump.

It comes as several senior Republicans have said that they cannot support Trump, even if they cannot bring themselves to vote for Clinton. Former presidents George W Bush and his father George HW Bush have both declines to back the billionaire property developer’s candidacy, as has Jeb Bush, who was repeatedly insulted by Trump during the primary campaign. Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential candidate, have also said that they will not support him.