Republican operatives sweat Trump’s role in the next Senate primaries

Republican operatives sweat Trump’s role in the next Senate primaries

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Trump has long been attracted to supporting candidates who have shown endless loyalty to him and Republican members believe that that desire, especially after losing the presidential election in 2020, will remain unchanged two years later. But the fear among some operatives is that Trump is even more of a free agent outside the White House, less willing to bow to the pressure that party leaders like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell put on him to support candidates they believe they have. better chances of winning state races.

To make matters worse, there is a Senate map that is preparing to test the Republican Party. Of the 34 Senate contests in the country next year, Republicans will be tasked with defending 20 seats, compared with 14 for Democrats. And of those 20 seats, two will be in states where President Joe Biden won – Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and four in traditional battle states – Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina. Democrats’ most threatened seats will be in Georgia and Arizona, two states where the party won the special elections in 2020.

Trump’s dynamics, operatives said, can play out in very dramatic ways: while the party apparatus can subtly support certain candidates in the Senate’s primary primaries, Trump could support candidates who were openly loyal to him, creating a clear division between the parties leaders and the former president.

“It’s incredibly complicated,” said a leading Republican who has worked in Senate contests. “It has been incredibly complicated in recent years and we had at least one chair at the table. He left the building, so any influence that Senate Republicans possibly had and that they could use to put him on the same page are no longer options.”

With the Senate map starting to take shape, Republicans now see countless opportunities for Trump to give in to the urge to enter, especially in open seats or states where Democrats are playing defense.

And Trump made it clear on Thursday, after a meeting with minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, who has no plans to relinquish control. “President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time,” according to a reading provided by Trump’s political action committee. Although he remains popular with Republicans, Trump stepped down earlier this month with the lowest approval rating for his presidency, according to a CNN poll.

Vulnerable seats for Republicans

The most vulnerable seat for Republicans will be an open race in Pennsylvania, a state that Biden won in 2020 after Republican Senator Pat Toomey announced he would not run for re-election. The list of possible candidates in the state is long, but a confrontation that could create headaches for Republicans would be between moderate former members of the House, such as Ryan Costello or Charlie Dent, and a more conservative candidate who could get Trump’s attention. .

The party could find itself in a similar situation in Wisconsin, another state run by Biden. Republican Senator Ron Johnson has not yet said whether he will run for re-election, but he has left the door open for possible retirement. The party will also be defending open seats in Ohio and North Carolina, two states that Trump won in 2020, but where the Republican primaries will be the key to assessing the party’s ability to hold the seats.

Sources indicated to CNN on Thursday that Ohio deputy Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s favorites, would not run for the seat left by Sen. Rob Portman, who chose not to run for re-election. This removes an obstacle for Republicans, since Ohio operatives believed that if Jordan had run, Trump would undoubtedly have supported his candidacy. But Jordan’s decision could still lead to a primary division if the field remains large and heavy.

And since Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has yet to announce his intentions for 2022, Republicans may be standing up for another spot if the 87-year-old senator decides to retire.

The two places where Republicans feel a far-right challenge are likely Georgia and Arizona, both carried by Biden.

Biden became only the second Democrat since 1948 to win Arizona. But the party’s Republican apparatus remains deeply loyal to Trump and the possibility of a candidate aligned with the far right of the party to stand against more moderate options seems likely for some operatives.
And in Georgia – where Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in 28 years – Trump has a score to settle, angry with the state’s top three Republicans for not supporting his attempt to overturn the election result. A source who has been in meetings with Trump for the past four years described him as “incredibly vindictive” when it came to using his political power, making it all but certain that if it is possible for Trump to make life more difficult for Republicans in Georgia, he going to do that.

Trump’s control over the GOP

Trump’s control over the Republican Party was only strengthened in his four years in office. And just a few weeks away from his presidency, there are few signs – if any – that Republicans are preparing to step away from the former president.

“This agenda is not going to change. We are not going back to the Republican Party agendas of Mitt Romney and John McCain,” said Michael Whatley, president of the Republican Party of North Carolina.

Whatley argued that the question for Republicans is more about making the Trump base appear, not how involved the former president will be.

“In 2018 we saw a very big drop in turnout for Republicans, with Trump off the plate and we had a phenomenal turnout in 2020. So we just need to make sure that we can convert Trump voters into credible voters,” he said. For Whatley, this means “there will always be a role for the (ex) president just because he enlivens the Republican base that loves him so much, and we saw it in North Carolina.”

This would not be the first time the primaries have raised questions for Republicans – the party has had complicated primaries in the Senate over the past decade or more.

The clearest example of this was the Tea Party movement, after the election of President Barack Obama, which conquered sectors of the Republican Party. These candidates helped propel Republicans to power in the House in 2010, where disorganized districts were more conservative. But many of these Tea Party-inspired candidates have also fought in state disputes and denied Republicans the chance to regain control of the Senate.

Republicans fear that the same could happen in 2022 if the party is not careful.

“The key will be to navigate the primaries,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist. “That is going to be the problem. And make sure that we are getting candidates who can run across the state and appeal to people across the state.”

Democrats are eager to watch this possible drama unfold, in the hope that Republican internal struggles can save their small majority in the Senate and distract Republicans from a general election that, if history serves as a guide, must be bad for the United States. Democrats.

“We know the environment can be challenging,” said JB Poersch, president of the Senate majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC. “But the caveat to that is Trump and the division within his own party – it’s real and I don’t think Republicans are yet to know what it means and how it’s going to happen.”

Poersch added, “It is likely that Trump will appear here in a way that we have not seen a former president cast a shadow over a remarkable period of time.”

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