By Tim Reid and Helen Coster
(Reuters) – The Republican National Committee will consider a proposal next week to declare former President Donald Trump the party’s presumptive presidential nominee as pressure mounts on his last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, to drop out of the race.
Trump ally David Bossie circulated a draft resolution to fellow RNC committee members on Thursday that could be voted on next week at the group’s winter meeting in Las Vegas.
Trump and his allies have begun a pressure campaign on Haley, who refused to bow out of the race after finishing second in the party’s nominating contest in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Her refusal to end her campaign has infuriated Trump, who wants to turn his attention to the general election and his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden.
A vote by members of the RNC, which oversees the party’s elections process, will increase pressure on Haley to drop out, but her campaign on Thursday was unmoved by Bossie’s resolution.
“Who cares what the RNC says? We’ll let millions of Republican voters across the country decide who should be our party’s nominee, not a bunch of Washington insiders,” her campaign said in a statement.
Trump wants to knock Haley out of the race before the next major contest in her home state of South Carolina on Feb. 24.
On Wednesday night Trump threatened Haley’s donors, declaring that anybody who continued to fund her campaign would be permanently barred from his political orbit.
Two Haley donors have already turned off the spigot, saying they see no path for her to win the nomination.
Bossie’s resolution, if passed, would state that the “Republican National Committee hereby declares President Trump as our presumptive 2024 nominee for the office of President of the United States and from this moment forward moves into full general election mode.”
Keith Schipper, an RNC spokesperson, said Bossie’s resolution will be taken up by the RNC’s Resolutions Committee, and its members will decide whether it will be voted on.
Bossie did not return a request for comment.
(Reporting by Tim Reid and Helen Coster; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
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