Why Washington Republican Chris Vance cannot support Trump

Chris Vance has faced this political dilemma before: do you support a candidate from your party when you disagree with them or do you deny them your support. In every past example he can think of, Vance has suggested fellow Republicans hold their nose and back a candidate even if they disagree.

Take Republican George Nethercutt as an example — a politician who spent 10 years as a congressman. He was controversial to some conservatives, but Vance encouraged his party members to rally for Nerthercutt.

But this is different. Vance has come to a breaking point with Donald Trump.

“I’ve tried hard not to comment on the Republican presidential campaign; I’m trying to run my campaign. But I feel that once we have a nominee, you owe it to voters to tell people where you stand,” Vance told KTTH’s Todd Herman. “It’s painful not to support the presumptive Republican nominee, but I can’t vote for Donald Trump. I just can’t.”

“This is the extraordinary circumstance where you have a candidate who we don’t just disagree with a little bit, but is so far beyond where most Republicans stand. You reach a point – would we support anyone who runs as a Republican, no matter who they are, or what they say?”

Vance is no stranger to Washington politics. He’s a former chair of the state’s Republican Party, and he helped the campaigns of Dino Rossi and Rob McKenna. He was a member of the state house of representative and served as a King County council member. Currently, he is running against Democrat Patty Murray for U.S. Senate.

If there is one message Vance is sending his fellow Washington Republicans, it’s this: there is no use unifying over Trump, but instead, unify on everything else from the Senate to state level positions.

“If someone gets traded to the Seahawks, and they put on a Seahawks uniform, you love them and they are a part of your team. But this is not sports. There are certain positions you just cannot take, and things you can’t do,” Vance said. “This is tearing our party apart….Marco Rubio was right, six months ago, when he said that if we nominate Donald Trump, the party is going to fracture. And people just need to accept that. We are not going to unify at the presidential level.  But we need to unify around everything else.”

“You need to accept it…it is an absolute fact. Whether you like it or not, Republicans will not unify around Donald Trump,” he added. “We can either split up into warring camps of pro- and anti-Trump and fight each other for the next six months, or we can unify on the things we agree on, which is beating Jay Inslee and, I hope, Patty Murray.”

It’s not just Trump’s style or personality that rubs Vance the wrong way. When pressed on exactly why he is anti-Trump, he had reasons.

“Like encouraging Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons,” he said. “That would destabilize Asia. It’s so outside the realm of responsible thought. It’s breathtaking.”

“Donald Trump has a plan to change our tax code and not cut spending. He’s absolutely opposed to the types of entitlement reforms to Social Security and Medicare that I think are vital if we are going to have any chance of bringing down our debt. His proposal would add $12-15 trillion to our debt,” he said.  “Another huge issue for me is national defense, and the things he has said in terms of defending this country are frightening.”

Vance went as far as saying that Hillary Clinton would be better on national defense than Trump – and he’s absolutely opposed to her politics.

“I’ve never heard Hillary say that we should reduce our commitments to NATO and encourage other countries to develop nuclear weapons. I heard Hillary Clinton stand there, toe-to-toe with Bernie Sanders, and defend Israel.”

“On substance, not style, neither of these folks have policies that are going to be good for America,” he said.

Trump’s campaign has already begun to defend itself from fellow Republicans like Vance. Trump recently tweeted:

I will win the election against Crooked Hillary despite the people in the Republican Party that are currently and selfishly opposed to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2016

Listen to other arguments Vance made against Trump:

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