A reckoning: some Georgia Republicans warily embrace Trump

And many of the Republicans who had just days ago vowed to stop the former reality TV star’s march to the GOP nomination were now left with a tough decision: give Trump their uneasy embrace or risk a third term of a Democrat in the White House.

Will Kremer, a former chairman of the Georgia College Republicans, said he’ll vote for down-ticket GOP candidates in November, but he’s wrestling over whether to leave the presidential ballot blank or cast his choice for a third-party candidate.

“Party loyalty has its limits,” said Kremer, also a one-time candidate for a North Georgia House seat. “Trump is the standard-bearer of the party and its spokesman. But what that tells me is the Republican Party has left me.”

Trump won a commanding victory in Georgia's March primary, notching nearly 40 percent of the vote in a crowded field, but most of the state's leading Republicans rallied around his rivals. Only a handful of elected officials, including Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald and state Sen. Michael Williams, endorsed him.

Nowhere was that unease over Trump more visible than last month's GOP regional conventions, when allies of Cruz and Kasich locked down one delegate after another in Georgia districts that voted heavily for Trump.

Uniting the party will now be an unprecedented challenge for the billionaire, whose biting rhetoric and vows to build a wall on Mexico's border alienated many mainstream Republicans. Just ask Kathy Hildebrand, a Cruz supporter who traveled from Gwinnett County to Iowa in January to sell cookies for her candidate.

“I feel like I do about any liberal Democrat pretending to be a Republican,” she said of Trump. “He’s a bully and a baby and I’ve been personally threatened. So — not a fan.”

A lack of enthusiasm from devoted party activists such as Hildebrand could hamper voter turnout, soften fundraising and drag down the campaigns of other candidates on the ballot, from U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s re-election bid to the 236 legislative contests up for grabs.

That's a prospect that has Democrats in Georgia salivating. After years of humbling losses to an ascendant Republican Party, Democrats hope that a GOP ticket headlined by Trump gives them the tantalizing chance to turn Georgia from red to blue, or at least purple, this election cycle.

Across the state, anti-Trump Republicans are stewing over their choices. And this week served as a blaring wake-up call.

Even before Cruz suspended his campaign after his bruising defeat in Indiana, Georgia U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland sent a message to his constituents that the GOP race for president was over.

"It's time for the Republican Party to face the facts: the voters aren't happy with the way our country is being governed," said Westmoreland, an early supporter of Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. "The base of the Republican Party is hard working Americans who feel betrayed by our majority in both bodies of Congress. And tonight in Indiana, the silent majority and our core voters have spoken. Like it or not: they have chosen Mr. Trump."

The departure of Kasich, a long-shot candidate who only won his home state of Ohio, only sharpened the calls for unity. Clint Murphy, a Republican activist in Savannah, was among the conservatives who cast their lot with Trump — “enthusiastically,” in his words.

“Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, and I will go ahead and say it, he will be elected president in November,” Murphy said. “I will vote for him. Politics as usual has failed our country, and it’s going to take an outsider to fix it.”

As Trump pivots toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, his likely opponent in November, he must now pick up the fractured pieces of his party, from the grass-roots loyalists who work phone banks and knock on doors to the wealthy donors who fuel campaigns with cash.

Indiana’s results reveal the tough task ahead: Exit polls show almost three-quarters of Cruz’s supporters say they won’t support Trump in November.

“The burden to unite the party is Mr. Trump’s alone — you break it, you buy it,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a veteran Georgia Republican strategist who was one of Mitt Romney’s top advisers.

“And yet Trump has already demonstrated an uncanny ability to defy the odds and his detractors,” Tanenblatt said. “If this primary was instructive in any way, it’s that no one — certainly not Hillary Clinton — should underestimate Donald Trump.”

Trump’s supporters are confident the hostility will fade, shaped by a mutual disdain for Clinton. John Wood, the chairman of a GOP district centered in Savannah, said while there’s no doubt Trump is no “fan favorite” of Georgia Republicans, it’s no time for mourning.

“We have a nominee now, so it’s time to get to work,” Wood said. “We have 187 days to convince American voters, including a decent number in our own party, that we are better off with Trump than Clinton leading this country. By November, we must have a united electorate or it’s 2008 all over again.”

Even some of Trump’s biggest GOP detractors show some signs of hedging their bets.

Kremer, who declared his hatred for a “racist and misogynistic” Trump, was asked how far he would take his refusal to vote for his party’s nominee. He paused, then sighed for what seemed like a minute.

“I’m not sure what November will bring. I can’t predict what November will bring. If Hillary Clinton says something completely outlandish, I might have to reconsider,” he said, quickly adding: “And if Donald Trump says something more outlandish than he’s already saying, I might have to double down.”