Big GOP donor says he'd back Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump

By Jack Mirkinson | December 5, 2015 | 4:20pm

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A major Republican donor in Florida said Friday that he is so opposed to Donald Trump that he would back Hillary Clinton if Trump won the Republican primary.

Trump has opened up big leads in some recent polls of the Republican presidential field. Many GOP elites have been privately panicking about his continued strength in the race, but have come up with no concrete plan to take him on.

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Mike Fernandez, a billionaire supporter of Jeb Bush’s in Florida, broke with that tradition in Friday, telling the Miami Herald that he was “furious” with Republican Trump supporters.

“If I have a choice — and you can put it in bold — if I have a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I’m choosing Hillary,” he said. “She’s the lesser of two evils.” He’s also running an ad in the Herald that compares Trump’s popularity to that of Mussolini and Hitler.

Top Republicans are worried that others will come to the same conclusion if Trump goes the distance. The New York Times reported that many in the party establishment “fear…an electoral wipeout” that could see the GOP lose its Senate majority as well as the presidential election if Trump is the nominee.

One person who seems less and less able to assuage Fernandez’s fears is Jeb Bush, the man he is currently donating money to. Bush was polling at just 3 percent in CNN’s latest survey.