A story that circulated after [a recent Republican Money] lunch was that the donors engaged in a hypothetical question: "If it was Donald Trump running against Hillary Clinton, who would you vote for?"
One version has it that most of the Republicans at the table put their hands up for Clinton.
[The lunch's sponsor] disputes that account and said in a telephone interview Tuesday that it was just banter among friends and that he is confident that all the Republicans at the table would support the final GOP nominee for president, whomever that turns out to be.
I believe the original account.
(Incidentally, could we please retire "whom" and all its ungodly variations? The Hill got "who" wrong in the opening sentence — it should have been "whom" — and then misused "whomever" in the last. Maybe it's time to just dismiss the distinction altogether. Oh, The Hill also confused "was" with what should have been "were" in its reformulation of the Trump-Clinton question. Sorry for the pedantry — but earlier this morning we discussed professional journalism, which, it seems, should at least start with proper grammar.)