Gov. Doug Ducey quietly hatched a scheme to break Trump's grip on the GOP

The Arizona Biltmore has a reputation for refined elegance with just a whiff of intrigue. In the early 1930s that came with a particular kind of service. For gentlemen on the guest registry there was the hidden staircase that led to a private door that opened to a “secret room.”

There they puffed away and read the stock ticker while imbibing forbidden pleasures of the distilled kind. It was the Age of Prohibition, and such was the Biltmore’s attention to detail that the hotel provided a complimentary lookout on the rooftop with spotlight.

If the hotel’s beam caught the furtive movements of cops on a liquor raid, hotel staff would “shine the spotlight down onto the stained-glass roof of the mystery room” alerting guests inside “they needed to return to their rooms,” according to the resort’s own history.

Now, nearly a century later, the Washington Post on Sunday reported that the Arizona Biltmore is once again a place of intrigue.

Ducey helped bring intrigue back to The Biltmore

This time the gentlemen and women were members of the Republican Governors Association, who were quietly hatching a scheme there in mid-November that many in their party might find offensive.

Their plan was to knock out the handpicked candidates of Donald Trump in the approaching GOP primaries, The Post reported.

Among the strategists was Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a man with a tortured relationship with Trump.

Ducey has been at times Trump’s supporter and at times his target. In 2020 he was Trump’s tormentor, famously certifying Joe Biden’s Arizona victory while leaving the president hanging on the phone, his ringtone “Hail to the Chief” playing weakly in the background.

Trump has never forgiven Ducey for that.

As Democrats attack, the GOP assesses its liability

As Washington, D.C., Democrats dig deeper into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and try to uncover the depths of Trump’s involvement on that infamous day, more traditional Republicans have been working quietly to break Trump’s grip on the party.

Any Republican not captured by Trump understands that the former president represents the greatest liability to the party. If he wins its nomination in 2024 the Democrats will not have to run a single get-out-the vote ad. Sirens will wail in the heads of all Democrats, alerting them to go to the polls.

A Trump nomination will represent the largest in-kind contribution the Democratic Party has ever enjoyed, an absolute godsend that would rally all of that party’s competing interest groups into a single, united front.

For his part, Trump has not even begun to focus on Democrats. He’s busy trying to destroy the adults in his own party, the Republican leaders who would not yield to his “Stop the Steal” rot.

The Republican Governors understand the party’s Trump problem and began planning to protect GOP incumbents from Trump candidates by investing millions in their campaigns.

Trump's Republican support erodes 

That plan is either working or it coincides with a growing weariness among Republicans with Trump’s “Stop the Steal” obsession, which could best be summed up by Ducey’s comment to The Post:

“The focus is on 2022. I don’t believe we should spend one more moment talking about 2020.”

So the governors are active. And the results are coming in:

In Nebraska, Jim Pillen won the GOP primary for governor over Trump-backed Charles Herbster by roughly three points. Trump had stumped for Herbster, and his former inner circle of Kellyanne Conway, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie had all been helping, to no avail, reports the Nebraska Examiner.

Earlier this month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little won his state’s 2022 Republican primary election for governor over Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin. The outcome wasn’t close. Little won by 21 points.

In Pennsylvania there was a setback, as Republicans nominated Trump-supported Doug Mastriano for governor.

But in Georgia on Tuesday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to trounce the Trump-backed challenger, David Perdue. The latest polls have Kemp up by as much as 32 points and word is leaking that Trump has already given up on Perdue.

More voters put party above Trump

Ducey and the governor’s association committed $5 million to help Kemp win that race. Will that be the difference?

No doubt it will have helped, but an NBC News national poll earlier this month – while showing a majority of Republicans (55%) still believe Trump is the leader of the party – asked a second question that shows erosion:

“Do you consider yourself to be more of a supporter of Donald Trump or Republican Party?”

Fifty-eight percent of Republicans answered “the party.” Thirty-four percent answered “Donald Trump.” That’s the largest margin since January 2019, when the tracking poll showed the numbers were almost reversed.

All of this began with the election of Glenn Youngkin as governor of Virginia last November in a race in which Youngkin distanced himself from Trump and stayed focused on bedrock issues such as education and the economy.

Witnessing that, the party’s governors no doubt decided to scale it up when they met at The Biltmore.

It appears they have caught a wave.

And if you’re a Republican who still insists this is Trump’s party and forever will be Trump’s party, you can still get a good, stiff shot of whiskey at the Arizona Biltmore.

Phil Boas is a columnist for The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at 602-920-2844 or phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Gov. Doug Ducey quietly schemed to break Trump's grip on the GOP