- The Renew America Movement plans to campaign for Democrats and centrists in the midterms.
- The group said US democracy is at risk from a Republican Party still in Donald Trump's thrall.
- Renew America will campaign for 11 Democrats and nine GOP Trump critics including Rep. Liz Cheney.
A group of anti-Trump Republicans said they will campaign for vulnerable Democrats and other centrists in a bid to prevent the Republican Party from seizing back control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.
In a statement Thursday, the group, known as the Renew America Movement (RAM), said they were fighting to safeguard US democracy and the Constitution from the GOP.
"There is an urgent effort by Republicans and former Republicans to stem the tide of anti-democratic and lie-based Republican leaders in Congress before it's too late," RAM said in an announcement on Twitter.
Despite leaving office under a cloud of scandal following the Capitol riot, Trump has maintained his grip over the Republican Party, with many senior members of the party continuing to push his conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him by fraud.
The group said it has drawn up a list of candidates, which it calls The Renewers, and will campaign for them in races for the House and Senate in 2022.
It includes 11 Democrats facing tough battles for re-election, and nine Republicans, including high-profile Republican Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted to impeach Trump over his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Trump has championed primary challengers to Cheney, Murkowski, and other Republicans who have criticised him.
"With the mounting threats to our democracy and Constitution, we need people who work proactively to lead their party and the country away from the political extremes," Joel Searby, the group's national political director, told Reuters.
RAM was formed by disaffected Republicans in the wake of the Capitol attack to loosen Trump's grip on the party.
Among its leaders are a number of prominent anti-Trump Republicans, including Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official who gained prominence after he anonymously published a series of op-eds saying officials had been working to constrain Trump. Taylor went public with his identity in October 2020.
Other high-profile members of the group include Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump White House's former communications director, attorney George Conway, and former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele.
In an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday, Taylor and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman urged moderate Republicans to back some Democrats in a bid to seize the party back from "pro-Trump extremists."