As President Trump prepares to step down with his party in disarray, Republican leaders, including Senator Mitch McConnell, are maneuvering to prevent their control over the Republican Party in future elections, while Trump-aligned forces seek to punish Republican lawmakers. and governors who broke with him.
The bitter internal struggle underscores the deep divisions that Trump has created in the Republican Party and almost guarantees that the next campaign will represent a crucial test of the party’s leadership, with a series of clashes emerging in the coming months.
Friction is already increasing in several key states as a result of Trump’s incitement to the crowd that attacked the Capitol last week. They include Arizona, where Trump-aligned activists seek to censor the Republican governor whom they consider insufficiently loyal to the president, and Georgia, where a far-right faction wants to defeat the current governor in the primary elections.
In Washington, Republicans are particularly concerned about a handful of far-right MPs who could run for the Senate in undecided states, potentially tainting the party in some of the country’s most politically important areas. McConnell’s political lieutenants envision a large-scale campaign to prevent such candidates from winning the primaries in crucial states.
But Trump’s political cohort seems no less determined, and his allies in the states have laid the groundwork to face Republican officials who voted for Trump’s impeachment – or who merely acknowledged the simple reality that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the race. presidential.
Republicans on both sides of the conflict are openly acknowledging that they are headed for a confrontation.
“Of course,” said Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.
Kinzinger was equally outspoken when asked how he and other anti-Trump Republicans could dilute the president’s influence in the primaries: “We beat him,” he said.
The most visible tests of Trump’s influence can take place in two sparsely populated western states, South Dakota and Wyoming, where the president targeted two Republican leaders: John Thune, the Senate Republican in second place, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Third place.
“I suspect that we will see a lot of activity in the next two years for some of our members, including me,” said Mr. Thune, adding that he and others would have to “play the hand you received. “
He may face less political danger than Cheney, who when voting for Trump’s impeachment said that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a president”. The Republican Party of Wyoming said it was flooded with calls and messages from angry voters about its decision.
Trump talked to advisers about his contempt for Cheney in the days following the vote and expressed his satisfaction at the reaction she is experiencing in her home state.
In particular, Republican officials are concerned about possible campaigns for higher positions by some of the high-profile backbenchers in the House who protested the election results and propagated marginal conspiracy theories. Among these figures are representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, Lauren Boebert from Colorado and Andy Biggs from Arizona. All three states have seats in the Senate and governments elected in 2022.
As surprising as that, several mainline conservatives in the House are talking openly about how much Trump has hurt after the election, culminating in his role in inspiring unrest.
“The day after the election, the question of leadership was unquestionably in the hands of one person, and with each week that passed, unfortunately, he limited himself based on his own actions,” said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina , who predicted that ordinary voters would come to share their unease after they fully absorbed the Capitol riot.
Still, Trump promised a campaign of political retribution against lawmakers who opposed him – a number that grew with the impeachment vote. The president remains very popular among party bases and is likely to be able to raise enough money to be a revolutionary force in 2022.
Scott Reed, the former chief political strategist at the Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobby, said Republicans should prepare for a fierce deadly battle. Reed, who as an ally of McConnell helped crush right-wing populists in previous elections, said the party establishment would have to exploit divisions within Trump’s faction to guide his favorite candidates to power.
“In 2022, we will face the Trump pitchfork crowd and it will take an effort to defeat them,” said Reed. “Hopefully they will create multi-candidate races where their influence will be diluted.”
An initial test for the party is expected in the coming days, with Trump supporters trying to get Cheney out of his leadership role in the House. If that effort succeeds, it could indicate to voters and donors that the party’s militant wing is in control – a potentially alarming signal for more traditional Republicans in the business community.
Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, has acknowledged to political donors in recent days that the outgoing president and some members of his faction have seriously damaged the party’s relationship with big companies, people familiar with their talks said.
If Cheney is deposed, it could encourage primary challenges against other Republicans who supported impeachment or censorship, including more moderate lawmakers like Michigan deputies Peter Meijer and Fred Upton and New York’s John Katko, whose districts could escape Republicans if they hardline Trump loyal nominees. But in a sign that Trump cannot hope to fully dictate party affairs, McCarthy has indicated that he is opposed to calls to remove her from the leadership.
William E. Oberndorf, an influential Republican donor who gave $ 2.5 million to McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, in the 2020 election, said donors should closely monitor impeachment votes as they formulate their proposals. donation plans. A longtime critic of Trump, Oberndorf said it was a mistake for the party not to expel Trump during his first impeachment trial last year.
“They now have a chance to resolve this blatant error and ensure that Donald Trump can never again run for public office,” said Oberndorf. “Republican donors should pay attention to how our elected officials vote on this issue.”
It is not yet clear how widely the party leadership can embrace a strategy without new trumps, and there is strong evidence that the Republican base may react with fury to any explicit effort to relegate the former president to the political garbage can. In an annoying complication for Senate leaders, campaign committee chairman Sen. Rick Scott of Florida spoke critically of impeachment and opposed certification of Pennsylvania election results – a vote that could undermine his ability to raise money. large donor funds.
Several party states are already controlled by Trump’s allies, some of whom said Republican traditionalists would have to come to terms with their new coalition.
“What President Trump has done has realigned political parties, and either the establishment of the Republican Party recognizes it or not – and I believe we will,” said Representative Ken Buck, who is also President of the Republican Party in Colorado. He suggested that the party should be attentive to the support of Trump’s working class and avoid being “hyperfocused on the suburban vote”.
In some ways, the party may still face the same irreconcilable pressures that have plagued it for the past four years: on the one hand, the powerful cult of Trump’s personality on the right; on the other, his profound personal unpopularity with most American voters. As shocked as party leaders may be at the president’s conduct, they cannot win the general election if their obstinate supporters stay at home or vote in protest.
On paper, the Republican Party should have a good chance of recapturing one or both chambers of Congress in the next campaign, as Democratic majorities are small and the party that owns the White House generally loses space in the midterm elections.
But Republicans are in a state of extreme disorder in the Sun Belt states that entered the Biden column, and on several major northern battlegrounds, like Wisconsin and Michigan, they are facing the likelihood of undisciplined primaries in the Senate or governor. . The last time Democrats controlled the presidency, the House and the Senate, in 2010, Republicans won the House, but failed to claim the Senate because some of their nominees were out of the mainstream.
The divisions may be happening more sharply now in the two historically red states that entered the Biden column and elected three Democratic senators in this cycle: Georgia and Arizona. Local Republican Party establishments are suffering from these defeats, and Trump has been attacking local leaders with vehement – and false – allegations of political treachery.
Both states have elections for Senate and Governor in 2022, offering Trump hardline advocates a number of inviting targets.
In Arizona, state party officials who supported Trump’s attempts to overturn Biden’s victory began an effort to censor Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, for his public health policies, as well as Cindy McCain and former Senator Jeff Flake. , a pair of Republicans who supported Biden. Ducey may be the party’s strongest recruit for a Senate race next year.
Jonathan Lines, a former president of the Arizona Republican Party who supports Trump, said he feared that an island faction would paralyze the Republican Party at a time when it needed to be rebuilt.
“It’s just destroying the party to go out and try to censor people,” said Lines. “It doesn’t show that they are trying to attract new people to the party.”
And in Georgia, Trump has vowed to oust his former ally, Governor Brian Kemp, for refusing to sabotage the election result in his state. This week, the state’s second Republican, Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, who rebuked Trump for his interference, downgraded three state legislators who sought to help Trump overturn the state election results.
Several Republicans said they expected Democrats to exaggerate their newly acquired power in order to unite the Republican Party. “Nothing unites a party like a common threat,” said Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio.
Still, Stivers, who chaired the House’s campaign committee in 2018 and saw how Trump damaged the party, said he hoped the president would “step aside” in the manner of his predecessors, who “had their time in the sun”.
What if he doesn’t and demands revenge on people like Mr. Upton, a much loved House veteran who supported the impeachment?
“So I make the most of Fred Upton,” said Stivers.