The majority of American voters do not want a re-match of the 2020 presidential election. Conservative billionaire Charles Koch is willing to act early and use his political network to stop Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. This move is of interest because Koch has stayed on the sidelines since the 2016 presidential election.

In the 2016 GOP primary, Koch supported several candidates as alternatives to Trump. He’s never been a Trump supporter so it isn’t surprising that he still isn’t a supporter. What does catch my attention is that he and his network are making a point to come out early with the hopes of influencing the primary. As a 3-page memo released on Sunday explains, the Koch network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), is in a position to make a difference in the primary process as few others can.

“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.”

The release of the memo at this early date is an in-your-face move. Trump is blamed for the failure of Republicans to take back control of the Senate due to his choices of candidates and the same is true in some gubernatorial races. Most voters are ready for a change but without a consolidated effort, Trump will be able to exploit Republican divisions and win the party nomination as he did in 2016. AFP is taking its shot at coordinating support with other groups to stop the Trump train.

The memo doesn’t outline the amount of money the Koch network will spend to try to defeat Trump in the primary but AFP’s affiliated super PAC spent more than $69 million in the 2022 cycle. The Club for Growth and several big individual donors are also signaling opposition to Trump’s third presidential campaign. The memo from Koch may encourage some who are holding back to pick a side.

To avoid what happened in 2016 when Koch supported five alternatives to Trump and none succeeded in stopping Trump’s nomination, the Koch network plans to announce its endorsement of one single candidate by the end of the summer. The memo states, “AFP Action is prepared to support a candidate in the Republican presidential primary who can lead our country forward, and who can win.”

A major riff between the Koch network and Trump is on economic policy. Trump supports economic nationalism while Koch is labeled a “globalist” by Trump supporters. Koch favors a free trade approach to economics. Trump and the Koch network come together in opposing foreign interventions and reducing nonviolent criminal sentences.

The key to success this time, Seidel says, is for the Koch network to get involved early and in more primaries.

The industrialist brothers assembled an influential network of groups that have sought to have a major impact on the political process. Sunday’s memo expressed frustration with the direction of American politics in the Trump era. “The Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles. And the American people are rejecting them,” Seidel wrote. “If we want better candidates, we’ve got to get involved in elections earlier and more primaries.”

The influence of the Koch network may be helped by the general displeasure of Republicans with Trump’s decision to run for a third time. It’s early but his entrance into the race was not met with the enthusiasm he thought it would garner. His approach this time around, according to people who have spoken with him, is to hold small events for now and build his state teams before going to the bigger rallies he is known to have. At this point, though, everyone is waiting to see who else decides to get into the race in opposition to him. So far, the only one coming forward is Nikki Haley. Republicans who do not want Trump as the 2024 nominee will benefit from a small field of candidates challenging Trump, unlike the large field like in 2015.

The Koch plan was given to donors this weekend at a meeting in California. Some elected officials who received AFP super PAC support in 2022 were in attendance, including Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo), Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-TN). It might have been a little awkward for Schmitt since he recently endorsed Trump.

The memo pledged to marshal resources, including a million grass-roots activists across all 50 states, data targeting technology known as i360, and the Latino outreach organization Libre. The memo said that in last year’s races, AFP and its affiliated super PAC knocked on more than 7 million doors, delivered more than 100 million pieces of mail, and contacted millions more voters by phone and email.

“The American people have shown that they’re ready to move on, and so AFP will help them do that,” Seidel said in the memo.

We’ll see how effective the Koch network still is after sitting out presidential contests since 2016.