Strategist's bolt from GOP a sign of Trump's impact on party

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AP) — Less than four years ago, the Republican Party tapped a few respected party officials to help the GOP find its way forward. This week, one of them says she's leaving the party – driven out by Donald Trump.

While not a household name, Sally Bradshaw's decision to leave the GOP rocked those who make politics their profession.

The longtime aide to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was one of the five senior Republican strategists tasked with identifying the party's shortcomings and recommending ways it could win the White House after its losing 2012 presidential campaign.

Now, she says, she'll vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if the race in her home state of Florida appears close come Election Day.

"Sally is representative of an important segment of our party, and that is college-educated women, where Donald Trump is losing by disastrous margins," said Ari Fleischer, who worked with Bradshaw on the GOP project and was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush. "Trump has moved in exactly the opposite direction from our recommendations on how to make the party more inclusive."

Fleischer still supports Trump over Clinton. But Bradshaw is among a group of top Republican operatives, messengers, national committee members and donors who continue to decry Trump's tactics, highlighting almost daily – with three months until Election Day – the rifts created by the billionaire and his takeover of the party.