EXCLUSIVE — Club for Growth President David McIntosh said his group will back the 2024 GOP nominee no matter what, but the 45th president may be the party's worst bet.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, McIntosh, whose group hosted presidential contenders at a Florida retreat last weekend, said Republicans need a new face if they expect to get back the White House.
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"I'm convinced that our weakest candidate for winning the White House is Donald Trump," said McIntosh. "And that's because we lost in '18, lost in '20, and lost in '22."
Trump was notably snubbed from a Club for Growth retreat held the same weekend as the Conservative Political Action Conference, which he headlined.
But nearly every other current or rumored GOP candidate attended the event in Palm Beach, Florida, including Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH).
McIntosh said his group might not endorse anyone in the Republican primary, but if it does, the financial reward would be steep.
The club is aiming to spend upward of $150 million, which is up for grabs should a Trump competitor earn its backing.
Trump has feuded with the group, which advocates limited government principles. The two were occasionally at odds during the midterm elections, and Trump was vexed by the group's promotion of internal polling showing him lagging behind DeSantis before his November campaign launch.
While Trump ripped the group, which he dubbed "Club For NO Growth," McIntosh said the reason his group is looking beyond the Donald is simple.
"We did a national poll in January; Biden would beat Trump by about 3 points," he said. "But DeSantis would beat Biden, also by about 3. So there was a 6-point swing, and that confirmed our thesis that we better look for somebody else."
In a wide-ranging conversation with the Washington Examiner, McIntosh, a former congressman, said the Club for Growth has had a relationship with DeSantis going to his first run for the House in 2012.
But he praised other politicos as well, saying Haley's responses in a Q&A session were particularly strong and that Sununu impressed with a talk focused solely on economic issues, the bread and butter of the Club for Growth.
While the club isn't sure if it will make an endorsement during the primary, it is concerned with a field that could become too big.
"All of [the candidates] indicated to me the reason they've decided to get in is that they, like us, are skeptical that Trump will be able to win the White House," said McIntosh. "So at this point, they're all opportunities for a better candidate. At some point, they've got to assess, 'Am I an impediment?'"
On the issues side, Club for Growth is promoting school choice, which it believes will be a winning issue for Republicans in 2024, and advocating against environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, investing that is being pushed by some on the Left.
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Despite the snub and the beef, McIntosh said the Club for Growth will support the GOP nominee in the general election, be it Trump or anyone else.
"If he's the nominee, we'll support him," McIntosh said. "And we'll find ways to do that. Back in 2016, the two states where we engaged to help were Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because we had the Senate races [in those states]. So we probably will look for opportunities like that to double up, where we benefit one of our candidates and benefit him if he's the nominee."