Steve Lonegan, Cruz SuperPac Founder Running Anti-Trump Ads

By Rebecca Savransky – the Hill

Groups focused on stopping Donald Trump from becoming the GOP’s nominee will begin airing ads Thursday aimed at unbinding delegates at the Republican National Convention.

The first ad, which will air on WHO-AM radio in Des Moines, is focused on Steve Scheffler, a member of the Republican National Committee, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ad is funded by the Courageous Conservatives PAC and urges people to contact Scheffler, one of Iowa’s two representatives on the Rules Committee. The PAC is run by Steve Lonegan, who formerly served as the New Jersey state chairman for Ted Cruz’s campaign.

The ad criticizes Scheffler for trying to “force Republican delegates to vote for Donald Trump and threatening those who find that vote to be morally offensive.”
The ad says delegates have the role of making decisions in the best interest of the party and its conservative values.

“Normally, our delegates would ratify the primary winner. But this is one of those times when the delegates need to be free to vote their conscience,” the ad says.

It then urges people to call Scheffler to push him to let delegates pick the “best Republican to fight for our conservative values and beat Hillary Clinton.”

Scheffler slammed the effort, calling it a “slap in the face of conservative activists in 50 states and six territories who have spoken,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

“These people spent all of their time trying to destroy people and they don’t do anything productive,” Scheffler told the WSJ. “Nothing, zero. What is the end result? You want to have a big war so somebody else is the nominee when the enemy is Hillary Clinton.”

He also said he won’t be intimidated by people involved in the effort to unbind delegates.