Yes, Ronald Reagan in 1980. They ended up running John Anderson on a third party ticket. Still, I don’t remember the GOP at that time actually running negative ads against Reagan.
I was in a large corporation that was sold to foreign interests. The management that slowly destroyed the company from within, eventually laying off most of the American workers to sell the company off piece by piece, remind me a lot of the GOPe. They don't care about us, the rank and file, they don't care about America, all they care about is their positions of power. They are our enemies. We need to name them, and remove them from the party. Let the democrats house all of the traitors, it's seems to be their specialty.