Which conservative organizations maintain public lists or ratings of RINOs and how do they define them?
Executive summary
Several conservative groups and grassroots projects publicly publish "RINO" lists or scorecards; examples include Club for Growth’s historical "RINO Watch" (noted as an early organizer of such lists) and state-focused sites like WyoRINO which posts scorecards and "RINO of the Month" writeups [1] [2]. National aggregator sites and activists maintain similarly framed lists (RINOWatch, Ranker), but definitions and criteria vary widely — from votes against party-line priorities to perceived disloyalty to conservative donors [3] [4] [5].
1. Who keeps public RINO lists: national groups and local projects
National advocacy organizations have produced RINO-style lists: the fiscally conservative Club for Growth started a "RINO Watch" to monitor Republicans it called "anti-growth" or "anti-free market" [1]. Independent websites and activist projects also operate scorecards and exposés; RINOWatch presents ongoing lists and updates, and Ranker’s crowd-vote list aggregates public nominations of "RINOs" [3] [4]. State-focused operations like WyoRINO publish annual scorecards, vote-by-vote score sheets for state legislatures, and periodic "RINO of the Month" features [2].
2. How these organizers define "RINO": policy voting vs. loyalty
Definitions cluster around two different justifications. Some organizations define a RINO by policy votes that contradict free‑market or small‑government principles; Club for Growth framed its list around officials who "advanced egregious anti‑growth, anti‑freedom or anti‑free market policies" [1]. Other actors treat RINO as a loyalty/fealty test — branding Republicans as RINOs for insufficient alignment with a faction’s leader or donors, or for crossing factional red lines [5] [6].
3. Methods: scorecards, vote logs, and shopper’s choice lists
Groups produce scorecards that tabulate roll‑call votes (WyoRINO posts Senate and House scorecards with bill descriptions) and narrative writeups that contextualize those scores [2]. Some outlets rely on crowd or editorial lists (Ranker’s community list), while others maintain a curated, updated database and headlines (RINOWatch) [4] [3]. Club for Growth’s earlier "watch" model targeted specific legislation tied to its mission [1].
4. What standards diverge on: substance, thresholds and intent
Standards differ sharply. Fiscal conservatives emphasize specific tax/regulatory votes as disqualifiers [1]. Populist or Trump‑aligned RINO hunters emphasize loyalty to leaders and posture on intra‑party fights — sometimes judging opposition to a high‑profile figure or vote on party discipline as RINO behavior [5] [6]. These competing standards produce different lists and occasionally label the same politician both RINO and loyalist, depending on the source [5] [6].
5. Political incentives and funding that shape lists
Public reporting shows RINO‑hunting can be financially backed and politically motivated: Texas "RINO hunter" campaigns were linked to megadonor funding in reporting on party infighting, suggesting donor agendas can influence who gets targeted [5]. Editorials and local papers also document partisan branding as a tool used in primaries, with groups and candidates weaponizing "RINO" labels for electoral advantage [6] [1].
6. What reporting does not show (limits of available sources)
Available sources do not mention a single, universally adopted standard across these organizations for labeling RINOs, nor do they provide a comprehensive catalog of every conservative organization that keeps a list; instead, they document representative examples — Club for Growth’s early "RINO Watch," RINOWatch, WyoRINO and crowd lists like Ranker [1] [3] [2] [4]. No source here publishes a universal legal or scholarly definition beyond journalistic and organizational descriptions [1] [7].
7. Takeaway — lists are less about neutral fact‑checking than factional policing
Conservative "RINO" lists are public and plentiful, but they are instruments of intra‑party policing rather than neutral scorekeeping: organizations set criteria to reflect mission priorities (free‑market voting, party loyalty or donor alignment) and use public scorecards or narrative accusations to influence primaries and reputations [1] [2] [5]. Readers should examine each list’s stated criteria — vote selection, weighting and sponsor funding — before treating labels as objective judgments [2] [5].