The Rise and Fall of The Lincoln Project

Photo by Mark Thomas is licensed under the Pixabay License.

If there is one video that best describes the Lincoln Project, it’s an advertisement released by the group last May: “There is mourning in America,” says a narrator, echoing Ronald Reagan’s iconic Morning in America ad from 1984. The rise of the Lincoln Project, a Republican-led, anti-Trump super PAC, was perhaps the most surprising byproduct of the Trump-era in American politics. However, its subsequent downfall has begun to overshadow its spectacular rise, shrink its base of support, and reverse its impact. There is only one option for the group moving forward, and that is to shut down and walk away. But to understand why, it is important to understand just how quickly it grew into the massive operation it became.

The Lincoln Project was founded in December of 2019 by a group of prominent figures in Republican politics. The group included former McCain staffers Steve Schmidt and John Weaver, conservative attorney George Conway, and strategist Rick Wilson, among others. They announced in a New York Times op-ed that they had started a super PAC with one goal: to defeat Donald Trump. They hoped to tap into a base that had been all but exiled from the Republican party—the “Never Trumpers” and moderate conservatives. They weren’t the only ones either; throughout 2020, a number of Republican-led political groups formed in opposition to Trump. They all believed that Trump was a cancer to the Republican Party and that they, by defeating him, could restore the “Grand Old Party” to what it once was. But the Lincoln Project took off in a way few expected. 

Its rise was nothing short of meteoric, raising almost $90 million in the 11 months before the 2020 election. It produced dozens of ads attacking Trump, almost all of them going viral on Twitter and Facebook. The founders became mainstays on news networks like CNN and MSNBC, started podcasts, and wrote op-eds in most major newspapers. While some more progressive politicians and activists were wary of teaming up with them, the majority of liberal media and political organizations embraced the Lincoln Project. There was a common goal and shared interest that, for many, was more important than policy differences. 

The group’s popularity had exploded so quickly that it paved the way for its own downfall. It made political enemies on the left and on the right, and it never paused to figure out its long-term goals or plans. Whatever it was that attributed to the Lincoln Project’s rise, there is no doubting that it made an impact. As it became clear that they had accomplished their goal and that Joe Biden would be the next president, the founders began to look ahead and think about the group’s future. There were discussions about transforming the super PAC into a much larger media operation, a potential financial gold mine.

Then, everything fell apart. A few months after the election, allegations of sexual assault surfaced against one of the group’s founders, John Weaver. Then, in January 2021, another co-founder, Jennifer Horn, left the group entirely, citing mistreatment and inner turmoil among the senior leadership team. Questions about the group’s finances—who was profiting, where the money was going, how the allegations would affect future donations—all came to light after Horn’s departure. Currently, other members of the group’s leadership are stepping away from the project altogether, some have been forced out, and others have chosen to leave. 

As Republicans in D.C. and around the country struggle to reimagine their party without Trump, the Lincoln Project faces a similar dilemma: How do you exist in a post-Trump landscape when your entire brand is centered around defeating Trump?

The Lincoln Project’s fall from grace tells us that it may not be possible.

 In many ways, it was a project bound to fall apart—centered around a one-time goal and relying on the support of people and groups fundamentally different from one another. Liberal media and organizers fled the minute the group began to self-implode. The MAGA Republicans had been aching to destroy it the whole time. It had isolated itself from both the far left and the far right, using an unreliable base of support as protection from these obvious vulnerabilities. Some of its own leadership has even begun to surrender, while others scramble to revamp and restructure the group. The problem with the Lincoln Project, and the reason there is no solution to its downfall, is that it was never meant to last this long nor to acquire this much power. It was fundamentally flawed at the start with no real agenda, no policy goals, and no transparent strategy. It was a building constructed on shaky ground, and no amount of reforming and reshaping could have prevented its inevitable collapse. 

The Lincoln Project accomplished its goal. It mobilized a large group of conservative voters and reminded the country that the Republican party is not only the party of Trump. It certainly had an impact on the 2020 election, and perhaps on the future of political media. But, the 2020 election is over, and Trump is no longer the president. Of course he may run again in 2024, which would be the obvious argument for keeping the group running. But as more and more weaknesses and flaws of the group materialize, the coalition it formed becomes more vulnerable and ineffective. To save its legacy and the potential for any real revitalization of the Republican party, the Lincoln Project should shut down entirely.