Sen. Todd Young Will Not Vote for Trump: ‘I’m Tired of Having My Vote Taken for Granted’

UNITED STATES - JULY 27: Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., conducts a news conference in the U.S. C
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Bradley Jaye

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) will not vote for his own party’s nominee for president, he said Tuesday.

The establishment politician’s statement that he will not vote for Donald Trump comes days after the former president locked up the party’s nomination. Young had indicated earlier he would not endorse Trump, but Tuesday is the first time he admitted publicly he will not even vote for his party’s standard bearer.

“At some point, principled conservatives need to incentivize our party, the Republican Party, to nominate somebody that principled conservatives can actually believe in,” Young told a local Indiana outlet. “Stated differently, I’m tired of having my vote taken for granted.”

Young, who supports ongoing American taxpayer funding of Ukraine’s war against Russia, has cited Trump’s refusal to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal as a prime reason for refusing to support Trump.

Young is an outlier among Republicans formerly reluctant to fully embrace Trump. Holdouts began coalescing around Trump after it became clear his nomination was inevitable. The floodgates opened on March 6, the day after Trump’s Super Tuesday romp, when Nikki Haley, Trump’s lone recalcitrant opponent, finally quit the race.

Most notably, the day Haley suspended her campaign, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) endorsed the former president. McConnell enjoyed a productive but uncomfortable working relationship with President Trump but had not spoken with him since January 2020 and rarely mentioned his name publicly.

“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said at the time, praising Trump’s record in office. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”

He continued, “I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people.”

Other top members of Senate GOP leadership have endorsed Trump. Both announced candidates to replace McConnell next Congress as Leader, Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and John Cornyn (R-TX), have endorsed Trump as well, despite each having public disagreements with Trump in the past.

Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.

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